Talk:Amygdala

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Contents 1 Citations needed 2 Problems with article? 3 Pronunciation 4 talk page management 5 Lizard Brain Redirect 6 New section I've added 7 I would like to submit a complete re-write of the Amygdala article 8 Hmm

[edit] Citations needed

This article is outgrowing its citations. Citations in an article on detailed functional anatomy need to be closely associated with particular sections. A recent update offers a reliable citation in "Principals of Neuroscience" but we can't easily correlate which sections are supported by that text. The information on learned fear conditioning seems to correlate with citations provided, but those too need to be directly associated with the citation. If we have several paragraphs of theory and two or three citations at the bottom, it is difficult to check facts. Other sections did not associate readily with any citation in a reliable source. One citation pointed to speculative literature from advocates of neurolinguistic programming. That is not peer-reviewed literature and does not meet a standard of reliability for a science article. A primary reference for assertions offered in such an article would be more appropriate for encyclopedic content. MoniqueRN 05:28, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

agreed. i would suggest that the most egregiously uncited material be removed immediately. sallison 19:25, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Based on my best judgement of what was most egregious, I've done that. I also made several other changes to resolve singular/plural conflicts, to add a citation, to better conform content to citations, to make content more readable and to temper subjective analysis of laboratory findings. Explanations follow.

There might be a publication style here to govern descriptions of bilateral anatomy. If there is a particular style, content should conform to style. The scope of my edits today did not involve a broad survey of style beyond this page. The language of structural anatomy, with a tendency toward singular description of bilateral features, might only be partially instructive. In exposition of anatomical functions, each of two bilateral features may be equally involved. See Lung. "The lung is..." "The lungs are involved..." "The lungs flank..." An established nuance might elude my comprehension, but I suspect a systematic stylistic problem I'm not prepared to address beyond this page.

The singular/plural problem becomes more complex as we describe dissection. We dissect an individual amygdala. We describe its parts as elements of a single amygdala. Nuclei within the dissected amygdala can be singular, as is the central nucleus, or plural, as are the lateral nuclei.

In the introduction, I removed a sentence that said five psychological conditions are "suspected of being linked" to these groups of nuclei. Suspicion of links is not strong content for an intro. No basis for the suspicions was available in citations. I removed references to sexual dimorphism, to association with aggression and to post-castration shrinkage. Only castration effects were supported by citation. Those were in rats, not in humans. The passages did not inform a general understanding of the subject as would be appropriate for an introductory paragraph.

The mention of "links" to fear and pleasure was vague and didn't accurately describe whatever dualism might be exposed by procedures that explore aversive and appetitive reactions. The leap from aversion and appetition in pure research to subjective descriptions of various emotions in clinical psychology is rhetorically narrow but scientifically vast. For the sake of accuracy, anatomy articles sometimes include big words. I would introduce error if referred to a tempting but overly general duality of "positive and negative emotions." Procedural associations with rewards and punishments in associative-learning research don't neatly expose the full scope of emotional discourse. Physiology associated with particular emotions is explored elsewhere in this collection, so we don't need to reach beyond what can be said with confidence about this anatomical feature.

The distinction between emotions and emotional reactions is also problematic when we attempt to describe neuroanatomical functions. We will find robust debate among researchers and clinicians about distinctions between feelings, emotions and emotional reactions. Citing the scope of that debate is beyond what I can contribute today. Deferring to the in-house definition, emotions are a language. The language represents feelings, which are perceptions of physiological responses to internal and external events. Expressions of that language are emotional reactions. Emotion is an impulse that arises from a perception or that causes a perception. The amygdala are involved in mediating responses to the impulse. The distinction might be narrow and many qualified scholars might debate the concepts. The best citation available on the page refers only once to a form of emotion, that being emotional learning, which is a reaction, not the primary action of the impulse. The anatomical scope of internal and external emotional discourse extends beyond these particular clusters of neurons that, along with other anatomical features, mediate that discourse. Thus, I changed the intro to mention a "role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions."

EDIT:Reviewing the emotions article, it is evident the concept of emotion as language has been dropped. The language construct might have heuristic value, but is probably less than definitive. All the same, the distinction between emotion as impulse and emotional reaction to the impulse seems solid, based on availalable texts.MoniqueRN 18:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The final section still contains material not directly associated with citations, but it is generally consistent with some research, at least to my knowledge. It needs to be refined. Other content related to reinforcement might be redeemed with reliable citations of consensus findings. MoniqueRN 03:25, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

the assertion above that amygdala's role in the brain is thoroughly understood is greatly overstated. furthermore, that which is presented here is definitely not consensus material. sallison 19:35, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems a bit fishy to me. Sources? Sayeth 19:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the relationship between castration and amygdala size I found this Pub Med article. I could not find anything about a link between amygdala size and aggressive behaviour. Renaissance Healer

Way to screw up the formatting, Neil. For someone with such a profound understanding of the 'magical' brain it seems odd that basic HTML formatting is beyond you.

What does anyone think of this? It seems to be too much a self-reference. haz (user talk) 13:59, 24 June 2006

- I removed the clicking section because it's clearly a biased advertisement. Just don't even tolerate this kind of stuff in the future. - Khol

- Amygdala stimulation is fine, yes- but this "clicking" technique is clearly a fallicy. When it links to a myspace page Clicking at Myspace that reeks of unprofessionalism and silliness- claiming that using the power of your brain to perform "Cloud Busting - Make clouds dissipate with thought." and to take advantage of "Synchronisation - When coincidences aren't coincidence, and you actually realise that with a feeling.", it's clearly something that doesn't deserve any kind of actual status as a legimate anything. Yes, it can be reported with a neutral point of view that some people advocate this kind of stuff but the section that existed before-hand implied that this self-proclaimed magic was true. I mean, let's face it- this is wacko stuff and has no place on wikipedia if it's going to have any kind of standing as a reputable source of real. - Khol

Electrical stimulation of animal amygdala in research does not produce results that support claims of self-control through self-stimulation of particular neuroatomical regions. There is no peer-reviewed evidence that techniques suggested in books promoted by this author have any more than a placebo effect.

There is no more place in this neuroanatomy article for a lone idiosyncratic view of how a person can control their neurobiological functions than there is a place in an article about Napoleon for information about someone who self-published a book claiming to speak for the ghost of Napoleon. Links promoting this author's speculative self-help books do not belong in this article because they are not relevant to the topic of this article. This author's self-published books probably don't meet standards of notability for an encyclopedic article of any sort.MoniqueRN 04:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I added a number of sources, but couldn't figure out how to cite textbooks with footnotes. Also, the Memory modulation section should be cleaned up. Michelleem 21:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Should this article disambiguate from the Amygdala spiking neural network? http://amygdala.sourceforge.net/

[edit] Problems with article?

Hi everyone, I was requested to come over to this article and have a look in regards to some sort of commotion? I gave it (and the talk page) a quick skim and the article seems reasonable in its current form; except that I would recommend putting the majority of the article in the singular form, i.e. amygdala is the most common usage. From the talk page, I would skip any reference to the clicking stuff; there is no clicking in the brain (except for clicking in the ear), there are only voltage potentials and current; or more specifically, electrons, nuclei, and photons interacting electromagnetically. Also, I would suggest to add more sources to the "memory section" and furthermore to add more historical neuroscience researchers to this article, e.g. who made the first connection between the fear state of mind and amygdala activity. Adios: --Sadi Carnot 14:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

Could the pronunciation be put at the top of the page please?--Lionheart Omega 21:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Pronciation guides are in dictionaries not encyclopedias. See:

. Thanks:--Sadi Carnot 13:04, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, my anonymous friend, I searched around a bit; I found a Neil Slade Interview, and he has a 1998 book selling at Amazon called: The Frontal Lobe Supercharge, which has a decent sales rank of 213,000 on 08/09/06. This book seems to cater to the spiritual or new-age type of crowd. The book and website seems to be about how to stimulate your amygdala by some kind of meditation technique, being similar to how reading a book or playing video games stimulates the amygdala. That’s great that he has his theory and he is actively striving to educate a certain type of crowd with his ideas, but he seems to be clogging up the talk:amygdala page with all his “clicking theory” stuff, which is a drain on everyone who just wants straight textbook knowledge on the topic of the “amygdala”.

For example, there’s no mention of “clicking” or “spade” in either Haines’ 1997 Fundamental Neuroscience or in Siegel’s 2006 Basic Neurochemistry. If you or someone else tried to start a Niel Slade wiki-article it would probably end up at the Wikipedia:articles for deletion section. I would suggest that Neil Slade as well as other’s on this talk page get themselves a Wikipedia account and a userpage so that they can converse properly on talkpages. Adios:--Sadi Carnot 13:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] talk page management

SevenTime <<<<snipped comments already deleted by someone who blanked the entire talk page after filling it up with a defense of ideas expressed in his vanity-press publications; see page history for details [1] Comments by others remain. Intent is that if the person doesn't want his comments here and wants to archive them, fine, but others are participating in a lengthy intermittant discussion during several months and their comments should not be deleted by one who is unhappy that the article does not include references to his self-published original research. SevenTime 08:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lizard Brain Redirect

Just wondering why Lizard Brain redirects here? Thanks. Searles2sels (PJ) 23:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Just so. But this being the case, shouldn't there be some discussion of the evolution of the brain and how the amygdala fits in? -Alcmaeonid (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New section I've added

I renamed the "Disorder" section to "Neuropsychological correlates of amygdala activity" and included a lot of research about the amygdala in primates and in humans (with appropriate citations).[2] I'd like to keep all of this research in the article, as I think it is very relevant, but my passage is what I'd mostly call "groundwork" and I'd like to make additions and improvements to it over time. Suggestions are welcomed. --Ubiq 10:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I would like to submit a complete re-write of the Amygdala article

Hi- I have worked on the amygdala for two decades and feel the article in its current form does not do justice to the field. As I understand it, the wiki culutre is more about small changes to what exists rather that major re-writes. I tried doing small edits but stopped in frustration. For this reasion, I would like to do a complete re-write of the text to improve the coverage and expand the citations. I have sent sereral colleagues who work on various aspects of the amaygdala my version of an amygdala wiki article and we have been assembling a bibliography to go with it that reflects the current and historical state of the field. Please advise me on whether I should go forward or leave this as it is. Ledouxje (talk) 22:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)Joseph LeDoux

One side of me would really hate to see the Neuropsychological correlates section go, especially considering I created most of it. But if you really think that the article could benefit from a complete rewrite, then by all means, be bold. --Ubiq (talk) 23:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hmm

This has gotta be the part of the brain where the soul peeks out. There should be a section about those interesting disorders you can get where, like, if the amygdala tightens up, everything feels insignificant, like people feel like theyre not the people you know, and if it widens you get a 'religious experience' where everything's oversignificant.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 01:42, 10 May 2008 (UTC)