The last decade of neuroimaging research has yielded important information concerning the structure, neurochemistry, and function of the amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Neuroimaging research reviewed in this article reveals heightened amygdala responsivity in PTSD during symptomatic states and during the processing of trauma-unrelated...

introduction: aggressive behavior is a major issue in the field of mental health. pharmacotherapy is often used for the treatment of violent individuals. a neurochemical system most consistently linked with aggression is the gabaergic system. the aim of the present investigation was to examine the effect of muscimol (gabaa agonist) 250 and 500 ng/rat and picrotoxin (gabaa antagonist) 1.5 and 3 ...

A combination of anterograde and retrograde tracing techniques was used to study the projections to the nucleus accumbens from the amygdala, the hippocampal formation (including the entorhinal cortex), and the perirhinal cortex in two species of macaque monkey. To help identify possible subregions within the nucleus accumbens, the distribution of calbindin was examined in two additional monkeys...

Male rat copulation is mediated by estrogen-sensitive neurons in the medial preoptic area (MPO) and medial amygdala (MEA); however, the mechanisms through which estradiol (E2) acts are not fully understood. We hypothesized that E2 acts through estrogen receptor α (ERα) in the MPO and MEA to promote male mating behavior. Antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (ASODN) complementary to ERα mRNA were bila...

Williamson M, Viau V. Selective contributions of the medial preoptic nucleus to testosterone-dependant regulation of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus and the HPA axis. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 295: R1020–R1030, 2008. First published August 6, 2008; doi:10.1152/ajpregu.90389.2008.—Previous data have consistently demonstrated an inhibitory effect of androgens on stres...

Amygdala is widely known as a critical neural hub for modulating negative emotions such fear and anxiety. Recent studies have shown that the basolateral amygdala (BLA) has reciprocal innervation, which plays an important role in regulating social interaction associative memory. However, connectivity pattern functional of contralateral projecting BLA neurons stress-related anxiety are not fully ...

BACKGROUND Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with atypical responses to emotional face stimuli with preferential processing given to threat-related facial expressions via hyperactive amygdalae disengaged from medial prefrontal modulation. METHOD We examined implicit emotional face perception in soldiers with (n = 20) and without (n = 25) PTSD using magnetoencephalography to ...

To reveal direct effects of androgens, independent of glucocorticoids, we studied the effects of gonadectomy (GDX) in adrenalectomized (ADX) rats with or without androgen replacement on corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) mRNA expression within various forebrain sites known to regulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. These included the medial parvocellu...

The amygdala is essential for classical fear conditioning. According to the current model of auditory fear conditioning, the lateral nucleus is the input station of the amygdala for conditioned auditory stimuli, whereas the central nucleus is the output station for conditioned fear responses. Yet, the lateral nucleus does not project to the central medial nucleus, where most brainstem projectio...

Social support benefits health and well-being in older individuals, however the mechanism remains poorly understood. One proposal, the stress-buffering hypothesis states social support 'buffers' the effects of stress on health. Alternatively, the main effect hypothesis suggests social support independently promotes health. We examined the combined association of social support and stress on the...