Abstract
The amygdala, so named for its resemblance to an almond, is a subcortical region that is located within the medial wall of the temporal lobe. The amygdala marks the junction of information from the autonomic nervous system and its control center, the hypothalamus, about internal milieu and vital needs of the organism, and information coming from the what-system about external objects. The amygdala determines then biological significance of external objects as a potential source of satisfaction for the organism’s internal needs. Evaluating external objects from the point of view of internal need satisfaction emerges as a qualitatively new phenomenon—subjective experience, emotion, and feeling. How neural activity translates attachment of significance to the object into subjective experience of certain feelings remains a mystery, but numerous experimental studies and clinical observations have demonstrated that this enigma is indeed linked to the amygdala.
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Notes
- 1.
Our point of interest will mostly be the basolateral nuclear group.
- 2.
Recall that BA37 is involved in the higher order visual processing—object recognition. This field is also connected with supramodal functions: word meaning (concept formation) and semantic memory.
- 3.
This fact is very interesting in relation to the hypothesis that so-called thalamic emotion is connected with the MD (Glezerman, 1986; Glezerman & Balkoski, 1999). This may imply that integration of limbic and thalamic emotion is implemented through amygdala–MD–OFC pathway. Thalamic emotion would have no influence on the emotional evaluation of objects within the amygdala which would make sense in that limbic emotion could then remain in a “pure” form to serve its basic goal of individual and species survival. Thalamic emotion will be discussed at length later in this chapter and in Chap. 8.
- 4.
According to the traditional definition, the amygdala is a key component of the limbic system in the brain.
- 5.
Indeed, the social situation is just a particular case within the broader definition of limbic emotion.
- 6.
We may consider words as object equivalents. As discussed in Chap. 2, word meaning is connected with the phylogenetically newer part, the “nucleus,” of BA37 in the inferotemporal cortex, while the older part of this field is responsible for object recognition.
- 7.
It may be that full separation of emotional experience from emotional expression is completed only in humans. This severance process would be connected with the formation of the human-specific cytoarchitectonic fields in the auditory and visual temporal cortex, and, correspondingly, with the further development of “world of sounds” and “world of meanings,” respectively. In nonhuman primates, vocalizations communicate both affect and information. With the development of secondary BA22 and BA42, the emerging speech sounds serve communication of information but no longer emotional expression. Development of tertiary BA21 manifests the formation of language’s phonological system that translates the expanding “world of meanings” into sound. Only intonation and inflection of voice remain as emotional expressions that are orchestrated by the amygdala’s efferents. At the stage of separation of information about object and an attitude toward the object, emotional expressions became external signals communicating internal emotional state.
- 8.
Here we deal with the network Left Amygdala–Left OFC–Left DLPC–Left Striatum. The OFC places emotion into a behavioral context, and the DLPC is responsible for implementation of behavior per se. Repeated behavioral patterns that follow emotions become stereotypes, which are stored in the striatum.
- 9.
Due to identification and formation of symbolic systems, RH emotional meaning is polysemantic and gives rise to intuitive emotional sensitivity. On the other hand, RH gestalt of facial expression’s emotional meaning (content) cannot be distinguished from the visual image of the face (form): they are united into a single integrated representation. Emotional meaning is always implicit, perceived through the visual image. Is this the “unconscious”? I do not think so.
- 10.
However, I would not call RH consciousness “unconscious” either.
- 11.
I use the term empathic understanding to emphasize that, in empathy, there is no free floating affect (that applies to LH object-related limbic emotion), but there is identification with the other’s experience, the whole within which emotion is embedded.
- 12.
Within a hemisphere (here we speak about the axis of intrahemispheric difference as opposed to the axis of interhemispheric L–R differentiation), facial identity (as we already know, see Chap. 4) is connected with the fusiform gyrus, the so-called Face Area in the RH. The middle temporal gyrus (BA21) is a visual cortical area that is important in processing of facial features and is activated during explicit processing of facial expressions (Critchley et al., 2000b). These authors indicate that the middle temporal gyrus may represent a human homolog of the superior temporal sulcus (STS) region in nonhuman primates. In this book, area STS was mentioned as a part of facial processing network in humans, based on work of Puce et al. (1998), see Chap. 4.
What is the visual image of facial expression? It is a particular pattern of muscle contractions that make up emotional expression. What then might this representation be in the LH? It must be (distinguished out of a face’s gestalt) the salient and typical features specific for each basic emotion. This visual image of a “moving” face, assigned with emotional significance by the amygdala, has its “dynamic” motor counterpart stored in the striatum (the amygdala and the striatum are both activated during explicit processing of face expression!).
- 13.
Routinized behavioral patterns associated with basic emotions are stored in the striatum. They are retrieved by the DLPC “command” in response to angry/happy faces.
- 14.
As indicated at the beginning of this chapter, the human amygdala, though it relays heavily on visual information, receives input from all sensory modalities, including auditory.
- 15.
Note that musical ability is mostly connected with the RH. Luria described a distinguished Russian composer V.G. Shabalin who had a stroke in the LH, and as a result became aphasic. At the same time, however, his ability to compose was intact, even better than before his stroke.
- 16.
Don’t we recognize here LFA thalamic level’s movements with their meditative quality?
- 17.
Articulation of a given language’s speech sounds is independent of one’s voice qualities.
- 18.
Although a detailed analysis of prosody is beyond the scope of this book, we will briefly outline the following components of prosody (Ross, 2003):
1. Linguistic prosody modulates and enhances linguistic meaning, for example, raising the intonation in the end of the sentence to indicate a question or using stress to highlight an element of information within a sentence.
2. Dialectical and idiosyncratic prosody refers to regional and individual differences in speech quality.
3. Affective prosody (emotion in voice) includes attitudinal and emotional prosody. Attitudinal prosody reflects feeling about the content of the utterance, as skepticism, doubt, enthusiasm, or boredom. An example of attitudinal prosody would be the emotional recognition task, given earlier in this chapter, where sincere or sarcastic intonation is the prosodic cue to decide whether the speaker was sincere or ironic. Emotional prosody injects emotions into speech, such as happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. It also conveys a speaker’s general feeling state.
Affective prosody is a lateralized function of the RH, while linguistic prosody is likely bilateral (Heilman, Bowers, Speedie, & Coslett, 1984; Merewether & Alpert, 1990; Ross, 2003).
- 19.
Later in this chapter we will discuss the autistic savant, Stephen Wiltshire, who gives a perfect musical performance within the VSS, with exact intonation and gestures.
- 20.
- 21.
From AN ANTHROPOLOGIST ON MARS by Oliver Sacks, copyright © 1995 by Oliver Sacks. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
- 22.
These examples are from the records of different patients.
- 23.
The peripheral part of BA37.
- 24.
Reprinted with the permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. from THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT AND OTHER CLINICAL TALES by Oliver Sacks. Copyright © 1970, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985 Oliver Sacks.
Excerpts from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks. © 1970, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985 by Oliver Sacks, used by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan, Copyright © Oliver Sacks, 1986.
- 25.
Implicit in the concept of significance is always the question “significance for whom?”—this “whom” is related to the left hemispheric self.
- 26.
Anthony was the 5-year-old autistic boy from Kanner’s material discussed in Chap. 6.
- 27.
From THINKING IN PICTURES by Temple Grandin, copyright © 1995, 2006 by Temple Grandin. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.
- 28.
Recall that Levy-Bruhl indicated: “[a]ll animate and inanimate objects are imbued with continuous vitality resembling that vital power which they felt in themselves” (see Chap. 6).
- 29.
Here again we are faced with the enigma of autism in that it does not fit any pattern known to neuropsychology or psychopathology.
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Glezerman, T.B. (2013). How Autistic Persons Feel (Cerebral Organization of Limbic Emotion and Autism). In: Autism and the Brain. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4112-0_7
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