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The roles of the amygdala in the affective regulation of body, brain, and behaviour (2010)
| Venue: | Connection Science |
| Citations: | 4 - 3 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Mirolli10theroles,
author = {Marco Mirolli and Francesco Mannella and Gianluca Baldassarre},
title = {The roles of the amygdala in the affective regulation of body, brain, and behaviour},
journal = {Connection Science},
year = {2010}
}
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Abstract
Abstract. Despite the great amount of knowledge produced by the neu-roscientific literature affective phenomena, current models tackling non-cognitive aspects of behavior are often bio-inspired but rarely bio-constrained. This paper presents a theoretical account of affective systems centered on the amygdala. This account aims to furnish a general framework and spe-cific pathways to implement models that are more closely related to bi-ological evidence. The amygdala, which receives input from brain areas encoding internal states, innately relevant stimuli, and innately neutral stimuli, plays a fundamental role inmotivational and emotional processes of organisms. This role is based on the fact that amygdala implements the two associative processes at the core of Pavlovian learning (CS-US and CS-UR associations), and that it has the capacity of modulating these as-sociations on the basis of internal states. These functionalities allow the amygdala to play an important role in the regulation of the three fun-damental classes of affective responses (namely, the regulation of body states, the regulation of brain states via neuromodulators, and the trig-gering of a number of basic behaviours fundamental for adaptation) and in the regulation of three high-level cognitive processes (namely, the af-fective labeling of memories, the production of goal-directed behaviours, and the performance of planning and complex decision making). Our analysis is conducted within a methodological approach that stresses the importance of understanding the brain within an evolutionary/adaptive framework and with the aim of isolating general principles that can po-tentially account for the wider possible empirical evidence in a coherent fashion. 1
Keyphrases
affective regulation internal state important role af-fective labeling cs-ur association brain area pavlovian learning associative process coherent fashion brain state general framework non-cognitive aspect body state great amount fun-damental class complex decision making spe-cific pathway general principle bi-ological evidence neu-roscientific literature affective phenomenon emotional process affective response neutral stimulus evolutionary adaptive framework basic behaviour wider possible empirical evidence fundamental role current model affective system theoretical account methodological approach goal-directed behaviour high-level cognitive process relevant stimulus
