Amygdala News and Research

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People with GAD have abnormalities in the way their brain unconsciously controls emotions

People with generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, have abnormalities in the way their brain unconsciously controls emotions. That's the conclusion of a new Stanford University School of Medicine study, and the study authors say the findings could open up new avenues for treatments and change our understanding of how emotion is regulated in everyday life.

11 Feb 2010

Brain researchers explore link between emotion and memory

In a novel study that used historical tape of a thrilling overtime basketball game between Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, brain researchers at Duke have found that fans remember the good things their team did much better than the bad.

10 Feb 2010

Finding provides new insight into economic behavior of human beings

Neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and their colleagues have tied the human aversion to losing money to a specific structure in the brain-the amygdala.

9 Feb 2010

Blocking CRF may prevent excessive alcohol consumption

A team of scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has found that a specific stress hormone, the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), is key to the development and maintenance of alcohol dependence in animal models.

28 Jan 2010

Discovery could help improve diagnosis and treatment for anxiety disorders

Draw a map of the brain when fear and anxiety are involved, and the amygdala-the brain's almond-shaped center for panic and fight-or-flight responses-looms large.

27 Jan 2010

Dopamine replacement therapy causes brain dysfunction in patients with Parkinson disease, study says

People with Parkinson's Disease are more likely to display abnormal social behaviour and make poor decisions in ambiguous circumstances if they are pathological gamblers, according to research in the January issue of the European Journal of Neurology.

18 Jan 2010

Citicoline supplements may reduce cravings and increase satiety

The obesity crisis in the United States has now grown to epidemic proportion. And as the list of consequential health conditions and diseases continues to expand as well, there are major movements toward helping Americans lose weight.

5 Jan 2010

Inhaled carbon dioxide increases brain acidity and evokes fear behavior: Study

Breathing carbon dioxide can trigger panic attacks, but the biological reason for this effect has not been understood. A new study by University of Iowa researchers shows that carbon dioxide increases brain acidity, which in turn activates a brain protein that plays an important role in fear and anxiety behavior.

26 Nov 2009

New neuroimaging techniques yield new insights on Alzheimer's disease

Brain imaging can offer a window into risk for diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). A study conducted at the University of Kansas School of Medicine demonstrated that genetic risk is expressed in the brains of even those who are healthy, but carry some risk for AD. The results of this study are published in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

18 Nov 2009

Weizmann Institute scientists reveal how some aromas are bound up in our memories

From Proust's Madeleines to the overbearing food critic in the movie Ratatouille who's transported back to his childhood at the aroma of stew, artists have long been aware that some odors can spontaneously evoke strong memories

10 Nov 2009

Dark side of compulsive eating

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have shown that intermittent access to foods rich in fat and sugar induces changes in the brain which are comparable to those observed in drug dependence. The findings, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may explain how abstinence from these foods contributes to relapse eating among dieters as well as related eating disorders.

10 Nov 2009

Yo-yo dieting and sugar-bingeing can lead to anxiety and withdrawal symptoms

In research that sheds light on the perils of yo-yo dieting and repeated bouts of sugar-bingeing, researchers from The Scripps Research Institute have shown in animal models that cycling between periods of eating sweet and regular-tasting food can activate the brain's stress system and generate overeating, anxiety, and withdrawal-like symptoms.

10 Nov 2009

Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder can benefit from synthetic marijuana

Use of cannabinoids (marijuana) could assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder patients. This is exposed in a recent study carried out at the Learning and Memory Lab in the University of Haifa's Department of Psychology.

5 Nov 2009

Cannabinoids play an important role in stress-related disorders: Study

Use of cannabinoids (marijuana) could assist in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder patients. This is exposed in a new study carried out at the Learning and Memory Lab in the University of Haifa's Department of Psychology. The study, carried out by research student Eti Ganon-Elazar under the supervision of Dr. Irit Akirav, was published in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience.

4 Nov 2009

Changes in dopamine levels linked to infant learning patterns

When do you first leave the nest? Early in development infants of many species experience important transitions-such as learning when to leave the protective presence of their mother to start exploring the wider world. Neuroscientists have now pinpointed molecular events occurring in the brain during that turning point.

27 Oct 2009

Antidepressants are not effective for many people

More than half the people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief.

24 Oct 2009

Scientists explore new molecular insights for treating anxiety disorders

There are increasingly precise molecular insights into ways that stress exposure leads to fear and through which fear extinction resolves these fear states. Extinction is generally regarded as new inhibitory learning, but where the inhibition originates from remains to be determined.

22 Oct 2009

Brain study of people with psychopathic personality disorder

The age-old debate of 'nature versus nurture', of how much our personality and behaviours are shaped by biology or our environment, is sharpening up as scientists' exploration of the human brain gets ever more sophisticated.

6 Oct 2009

Findings could lead to new neurological treatments

The power of the imagination is well-known: it's no surprise that scary music is scarier with your eyes closed. But now neuroscientist and psychiatrist Prof. Talma Hendler of Tel Aviv University's Functional Brain Center says that this phenomenon may open the door to a new way of treating people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurological diseases.

16 Sep 2009

Study: Brain circuits may influence binge eating

Scientists led a rat to the fatty food, but they couldn't make it eat. Using an animal model of binge eating, University of Missouri researchers discovered that deactivating the basolateral amygdala, a brain region involved in regulating emotion, specifically blocked consumption of a fatty diet. Surprisingly, it had no effect on the rat wanting to look for the food repeatedly.

9 Sep 2009