Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by impairments in social cognition, a function associated with the amygdala. Subdivisions of the amygdala have been identified which show specificity of structure, connectivity, and function. Little is known about amygdala connectivity in ASD. The aim of this study was to investigate the microstructural properties of amygdala-cortical connections ...

The acquisition of fear associative memory requires brain processes coordinated neural activity within the amygdala, prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, thalamus and brainstem. After consolidation, a suppression in absence danger is crucial to permit adaptive coping behavior. Acquisition maintenance extinction critically depend on amygdala-PFC projections. robust correspondence between networ...

The amygdala is a heterogeneous brain structure implicated in processing of emotions and storing the emotional aspects of memories. Gene activity markers such as c-Fos have been shown to reflect both neuronal activation and neuronal plasticity. Herein, we analyze the expression patterns of gene activity markers in the amygdala in response to either behavioral training or treatment with drugs of...

Although there are numerous publications on amygdala volumetry, so far there has not been many studies on modeling local amygdala surface shape variations in a rigorous framework. This paper present a systematic framework for modeling local amygdala shape. Using a novel surface flattening technique, we obtain a smooth mapping from the amygdala surface to a sphere. Then taking the spherical coor...

The amygdala is a limbic brain region that plays a key role in emotional processing, neuropsychiatric disorders, and the emotional-affective dimension of pain. Preclinical and clinical studies have identified amygdala hyperactivity as well as impairment of cortical control mechanisms in pain states. Hyperactivity of basolateral amygdala (BLA) neurons generates enhanced feedforward inhibition an...

BACKGROUND In altricial species, maternal stimuli have powerful effects on amygdala development and attachment-related behaviors. In humans, maternal deprivation has been associated with both "indiscriminate friendliness" toward non-caregiving adults and altered amygdala development. We hypothesized that maternal deprivation would be associated with reduced amygdala discrimination between mothe...