1. 1 Brain Circuits Involved in Emotion processing: Subcortical Regions BIOS E 232 Sabina Berretta, MD Harvard Medical School McLean Hospital

2. 2 Plan for today’s class Journal club presentations and discussion: Carlin Aloe: Adolphs R, 2010. What does the amygdala contribute to social cognition? Ann N Y Acad Sci 1191, 42-61. Kameron Sheikh: Berridge KC, Ho CY, Richard JM, DiFeliceantonio AG, 2010. The tempted brain eats: pleasure and desire circuits in obesity and eating disorders. Brain Res 1350, 43-64. Brain circuits involved in emotion processing: amygdala, limbic thalamus and cortical circuits

3. 3 Hypothalamus Pituitary glandAdrenal gland Midbrain Pons Medulla DA, 5HT, NE motor response Spinal cord Brainstem glucocorticoid autonomic response

4. 4 The Human amygdala

5. 5 Orbital and medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC) Price, 2007

6. 6 The Human amygdala

7. 7 Amygdala circuitry Modulation of motivated behavior in the context of emotionally/socially significant setting

8. 8

9. Intrinsic amygdalar connections 9

10. The intercalated cell masses of the amygdala 10

11. Amygdala control and modulation of visceral functions 11 Modified from Price, 2003

12. The amygdala receives inputs from all sensory modalities 12 Note that all these connections, with the exception of that from the posterior thalamus are reciprocal. They provide sensory information to the amygdala and support amygdaloid modulation on sensory processing Modified from Price, 2003

13. The amygdala-forebrain circuit 13 Within the forebrain, the amygdala is part of a circuit that includes the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, medial thalamus, ventromedial striatum and ventral pallidum Modified from Price, 2003

14. 14 Central n. Amygdala Visceral inputs Hormonal, autonomic, motor responses Sensory thalamus Sensory-related associative Cx areas: Gustatory and Visceral Insular Cx, temporal auditory and visual Cx, parietal and rhinal somatosensory Cx Basolateral complex Orbitofrontal cx Medial prefrontal cx Anterior cingulate gyrus Limbic thalamus

15. 15 Amygdala Attribution of emotional value Fear/anxiety Social behavior OPFC Social behavior Representation of reinforcer values ACG Attention Motivation Response selection DLPFC Executive cognitive functions Strategy generation Working memory ECx Gating of cortical and subcortical inputs to the HP Memory processing HP Context-related cognitive processing Episodic memory MD Attention Decoding of stimulus/significance relationship

16. 16 The amygdala organizes multiple aspects of emotional response: Immediate visceral response Acquisition and response to emotional / arousing stimuli Modulation of memory consolidation in response to emotion Access to current motivational or affective value predicted by a specific stimulus Emotional significance of social cues

17. 17 Cortico-amygdalo-cortical circuits and emotion-related learning Berretta S., Stress, 2005

18. 18 Hughlings Jackson 1835 - 1911 Jackson reported complex auditory and visual hallucinations, memory flashbacks and emotions in patients with temporal lobe epilepsia. The work of Penfield and collaborators (1955) confirmed these observations and reported that similar phenomena could be elicited in these patients by electrical stimulation of the lateral temporal cortex and from the amygdala (but not from other lobes in the brain). Evidence for a complex role of the amygdala in emotion processing derives from temporal lobe epilepsy

19. 19 Sato et al 2004 The amygdala is activated by emotionally valenced stimuli and tracks their subjective relevance