The amygdala is known for is role in mediating social behaviors and emotions in both humans and animal subjects. Macaque monkeys are one animal that has provided a lot of data regarding the functions of the amygdala. They are a fairly complex animal that lives in a hierarchical social group and uses distinct facial expressions to communicate with one another. In this way they are very similar to humans in some respect. David Amaral, a professor at the UC Davis Center for neuroscience, lesioned several areas in the amygdala of macaques in an effort to further understand the role of the amygdala in regulating social behavior and causing social anxiety in humans. His study was published in the Journal of Biological Psychiatry. It explains that when lesioned, macaques displayed a pattern of behavior that was less fearful of foreign objects and more uninhibited socially. This suggests that the amygdala provides some sort of restraint on social behavior when a threat is detected, and also could have implications regarding the role of an overactive amygdala in causing anxiety. While this is not necessarily any new sort of knowledge, I think these findings are particularly interesting in light of what we have been learning in class regarding lesions. It is cool to see them applied in a real study, and the process used seems to make logical sense in implicating the amygdala as a regulator of social behavior. Obviously further studies will be necessary, but the amygdala having a role in reaction to fear is pretty established in neuroscience.
As alcohol is often regarded as a "social lubricant" that weakens inhibitions, I wonder what effect it would have on amygdala activity. Would it be a similar effect as found in lesioning the amygdala in macaques or is a different unrelated process at play? This idea almost lends itself to reverse inferencing, but it would be interesting to see the neurological effects of alcohol to better understand its social effects.
ReplyDeleteI think Faith introduces an interesting idea. I wonder if alcohol, or other drugs, that affect the activity of certain neurons in the brain (whether through activation or inhibition) could be used to imitate lesions - as in TMS. While this would obviously be a somewhat messy technique, and hard to localize to only one area of the brain, it might be useful in identifying and isolating certain pathways. It might also help us understand the true effects of some of the drugs that we use today.
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