The amygdala, located in the brain’s limbic system, is responsible for processing emotional stimuli and engaging them in memory. Damage to the amygdala can result in the inability to create or execute fear responses, lowered expressions of maternal behavior, increased risky behaviors, and difficulty recognizing emotions. It can also affect loss aversion and the ability to sense others in personal space.
Located in the brain’s limbic system, the amygdala is a brain structure involved in processing emotional stimuli, as well as engaging them in memory. Damage to the amygdala can have several effects, including the inability to create or execute fear responses to specific stimuli. Effects may also include lowered expressions of maternal behavior. Risky behaviors such as gambling on low odds can also increase as a result of damage to this area of the brain.
Normally, the amygdala helps the brain encode and express fear responses. Upon exposure to threatening stimuli, the brain memorizes these conditions and a reappearance of the stimulus will elicit a fear reaction. Some harm will completely extinguish this answer. An individual with this impairment will not associate fear responses with stimuli. Previously acquired fear responses will not be expressed in the presence of stimuli either.
Emotions other than fear are mediated in this area. In monkey studies, damage to the amygdala caused mothers to stop exhibiting maternal behavior. Mothers instead assaulted or abused their children, in some cases. Lesions to the entire amygdala on both sides of the brain have led to Kluver-Bucy syndrome in monkeys. This disorder causes a lack of aggression and fearfulness, as well as inappropriate sexual behavior.
Helping people recognize emotions is another function that can be affected by harm. People who had damage to the amygdala on both sides of the brain were unable to recognize emotions related to facial expressions. Sometimes, they even confused angry expressions with smiles. When these individuals were shown emotional expressions without faces, they were able to recognize the emotion being shown. This result shows that the brain has other centers that help individuals recognize emotions.
Loss aversion is a term that describes the avoidance of taking risks, especially when those risks would not lead to significant gain. Damage to the amygdala in humans has created the inability to practice loss aversion. These people tended to take big risks in gambling, even when they didn’t make much money from winning. Risk-taking that did not have the potential for the individual to lose was unaffected.
Sensing other people in one’s personal space is another amygdala function that may be affected. When the amygdala is damaged on both sides of the brain, people don’t respond to others in their personal space. This effect may be due to the fact that individuals do not differentiate between being right next to someone and standing some distance away from them.
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