Living without an Amygdala
Hardcovere-bookprint + e-book
Bringing together leading researchers, this book comprehensively covers what is known about the amygdala, with a unique focus on what happens when this key brain region is damaged or missing. Offering a truly comparative approach, the volume presents research on rats, monkeys, and humans. It reports on compelling cases of people living without an amygdala, whether due to genetic conditions, disease, or other causes. The consequences for an individual's ability to detect danger and regulate emotions—and for broader cognitive and social functions—are explored, as are lessons learned about brain pathways and plasticity. The volume delves into the role of the amygdala in psychiatric disorders and identifies important directions for future research. Illustrations include six color plates.
“A comprehensive and compelling overview of this small, but incredibly complex, brain region….Stylistically, the book shifts back and forth between prose-like storytelling and scientific journal articles. This style conveys and elucidates the existing literature, while also illustrating the real-world ramifications of navigating without the ability to fear….The book will be a worthwhile addition to the collections of graduate students and professionals. Highly recommended. Graduate students; researchers and faculty; professionals.”
—Choice Reviews
“
Living Without an Amygdalais a very readable compendium of historical, scientific, and clinical information about the amygdaloid complex, the brain’s yellow/red, caution/stop signs. The title…compels even an experienced student of neuroscience to start reading, motivated by the possibility that he or she will discover something about his or her own problems with memory, decision making, and emotional intelligence….
Living Without an Amygdaladocuments the wide-ranging emotional states and psychopathological conditions that are affected by the absence of amygdala….The editors and contributors to
Living Without an Amygdalamake it abundantly clear that amygdala is much more than the yellow/red, caution/danger flags and signposts on the brain’s information-processing superhighway and provide the reader with indispensable background for creating novel hypotheses and planning future research about how our brains construct emotional experiences.”
—PsycCRITIQUES
“An excellent book from two of the major students of the amygdala. This volume reviews, outlines, and organizes knowledge about the amygdala—the orchestrator of emotion—in a wonderfully clear and systematic fashion that brings our understanding from its solid foundation in rodents to a new level. This is a 'must read' for anyone interested in emotion and its psychological and biological consequences.”
—Eric Kandel, MD, Director, Kavli Institute for Brain Science; Co-Director, Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University
“Over the past several decades much has been learned about the role of the amygdala in behavior, mostly from studies of nonhuman animals. This volume makes a useful contribution by bringing together the current state of knowledge about the human amygdala.”
—Joseph E. LeDoux, PhD, Center for Neural Science and Department of Psychology, New York University
“
Living without an Amygdala provides an important corrective to the popular belief that the primary function of the amygdala is to create a state of fear. The elegant research in this volume affirms the adage that ugly facts often destroy beautiful ideas, and provides neuroscientists and psychologists with a richer understanding of the amygdala.”
—Jerome Kagan, PhD, Department of Psychology (Emeritus), Harvard University
“This book offers a novel window into the function of the amygdala across development by interweaving controlled primate studies of amygdala lesions with detailed histories of humans who have bilateral amygdala damage. The marriage of experimental neuroscience with personal and empathic narratives results in an informative, compelling work. This book will surely become a classic for students, instructors, and researchers who study the amygdala, human fear and anxiety, and the etiology of mental disorders. It should be of much interest in courses on affective and cognitive neuroscience, as well as abnormal psychology, psychiatry, and developmental psychopathology.”
—Katie McLaughlin, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Washington
Table of Contents
1. A Tale of Survival from the World of Patient S. M., Justin S. Feinstein, Ralph Adolphs, & Daniel Tranel
2. A Synopsis of Primate Amygdala Neuroanatomy, Cynthia M. Schumann, Martha V. Vargas, & Aaron Lee
3. A Short History of the Lesion Technique for Probing Amygdala Function, David G. Amaral
4. Role of the Rodent Amygdala in Early Development, Emma Sarro & Regina M. Sullivan
5. Foraging in the Face of Fear: Novel Strategies for Evaluating Amygdala Functions in Rats, Jeansok J. Kim, June-Seek Choi, & Hongjoo J. Lee
6. Lifetime Consequences of Early Amygdala Damage in Rhesus Monkeys, Eliza Bliss-Moreau, Gilda Moadab, & David G. Amaral
7. The Effects of Neonatal Amygdala Lesions in Rhesus Monkeys Living in a Species-Typical Social Environment, Jocelyne Bachevalier, Mar Sanchez, Jessica Raper, Shannon B. Z. Stephens, & Kim Wallen
8. The Central Nucleus of the Amygdala Is a Critical Substrate for Individual Differences in Anxiety, Jonathan A. Oler, Andrew S. Fox, Alexander J. Shackman, & Ned H. Kalin
9. Monkeys without an Amygdala, Elisabeth A. Murray & Sarah E. V. Rhodes
10. Consequences of Developmental Bilateral Amygdala Lesions in Humans, Ralph Adolphs
11. Behavioral Consequences and Compensatory Adaptations after Early Bilateral Amygdala Damage in Monozygotic Twins, Alexandra Patin & René Hurlemann
12. Consequences of Selective Bilateral Lesions to the Basolateral Amygdala in Humans, Jack van Honk, David Terburg, Helena Thornton, Dan J. Stein, & Barak Morgan
13. Attending to the World without an Amygdala, Rebecca M. Todd, Adam K. Anderson, & Elizabeth A. Phelps
14. Implications for Understanding Amygdala Function in Mental Disorders, Christopher S. Monk & Daniel S. Pine
Epilogue, David G. Amaral & Ralph Adolphs
Index
About the Editors
David G. Amaral, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Research Director of the UC Davis MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis. His interests include the neurobiology of social behavior and the development, neuroanatomical organization, and plasticity of the primate and human amygdala and hippocampal formation, with a particular focus on understanding the biological bases of autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Amaral is Director of Autism BrainNet, which solicits postmortem brain tissue to facilitate autism research, and Editor-in-Chief of
Autism Research. He is a past president of the International Society for Autism Research and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among other honors.
Ralph Adolphs, PhD, is Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology. He leads a social neuroscience laboratory that investigates the psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of social behavior, with a particular focus on the role of the human amygdala and prefrontal cortex. A major goal is to make comparisons and contrasts across different clinical populations and research techniques. Dr. Adolphs is a past president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and a recipient of the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, among other honors.
Contributors
Ralph Adolphs, PhD, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences,California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
David G. Amaral, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciencesand UC Davis MIND Institute, University of California, Davis,Sacramento, California
Adam K. Anderson, PhD, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University,Ithaca, New York
Jocelyne Bachevalier, PhD, Yerkes National Primate Research Center,Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Eliza Bliss-Moreau, PhD, California National Primate Research Center,University of California, Davis, Davis, California
June-Seek Choi, PhD, Department of Psychology, Korea University,Seoul, South Korea
Justin S. Feinstein, PhD, Department of Psychology and Oxley Collegeof Health Sciences, University of Tulsa, and Laureate Institutefor Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Andrew S. Fox, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin Schoolof Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin
René Hurlemann, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Division of MedicalPsychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Ned H. Kalin, MD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin Schoolof Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin
Jeansok J. Kim, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Washington,Seattle, Washington
Aaron Lee, BS, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,and UC Davis MIND Institute, University of California, Davis,Sacramento, California
Hongjoo J. Lee, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Texas,Austin, Texas
Gilda Moadab, BS, California National Primate Research Center,University of California, Davis, Davis, California
Christopher S. Monk, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan,Ann Arbor, Michigan
Barak Morgan, PhD, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town,Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa
Elisabeth A. Murray, PhD, Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Instituteof Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Jonathan A. Oler, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of WisconsinSchool of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin
Alexandra Patin, MA, MSc, Department of Psychiatry and Division of MedicalPsychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Elizabeth A. Phelps, PhD, Department of Psychology, New York University,New York, New York
Daniel S. Pine, MD, Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience,National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Jessica Raper, PhD, Yerkes National Primate Research Center,Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Sarah E. V. Rhodes, PhD, Office of Science Policy, National Institutesof Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Mar Sanchez, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,School of Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Emma Sarro, PhD, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,The Child Study Center at New York University Langone Medical Center,New York, New York
Cynthia M. Schumann, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and BehavioralSciences and UC Davis MIND Institute, University of California, Davis,Sacramento, California
Alexander J. Shackman, PhD, Department of Psychology,University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland
Dan J. Stein, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cape Town,Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa
Shannon B. Z. Stephens, PhD, Yerkes National Primate Research Center,Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Regina M. Sullivan, PhD, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,The Child Study Center at New York University Langone Medical Center,New York, New York
David Terburg, PhD, Department of Psychology/Experimental Psychology,Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Helena Thornton, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health,University of Cape Town, Observatory, Cape Town, South Africa
Rebecca M. Todd, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of BritishColumbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Daniel Tranel, PhD, Departments of Neurology and Psychology,University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
Jack van Honk, PhD, Department of Psychology/Experimental Psychology,Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Martha V. Vargas, BS, Counseling Division, Transfer Center, Santa AnaCollege, Novato, California
Kim Wallen, PhD, Yerkes National Primate Research Center,Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
Audience
Neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, clinical psychologists, and emotion researchers.
Course Use
May serve as a supplemental text in graduate-level courses.