Fernando Anushka B P, Murray Jennifer E, Milton Amy L
Department of Psychology, Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2013 Dec 6;7:190. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00190.
The amygdala has traditionally been associated with fear, mediating the impact of negative emotions on memory. However, this view does not fully encapsulate the function of the amygdala, nor the impact that processing in this structure has on the motivational limbic corticostriatal circuitry of which it is an important structure. Here we discuss the interactions between different amygdala nuclei with cortical and striatal regions involved in motivation; interconnections and parallel circuitries that have become increasingly understood in recent years. We review the evidence that the amygdala stores memories that allow initially motivationally neutral stimuli to become associated through pavlovian conditioning with motivationally relevant outcomes which, importantly, can be either appetitive (e.g. food) or aversive (e.g. electric shock). We also consider how different psychological processes supported by the amygdala such as conditioned reinforcement and punishment, conditioned motivation and suppression, and conditioned approach and avoidance behavior, are not only psychologically but also neurobiologically dissociable, being mediated by distinct yet overlapping neural circuits within the limbic corticostriatal circuitry. Clearly the role of the amygdala goes beyond encoding aversive stimuli to also encode the appetitive, requiring an appreciation of the amygdala's mediation of both appetitive and fearful behavior through diverse psychological processes.
传统上，杏仁核与恐惧相关联，介导负面情绪对记忆的影响。然而，这一观点并未完全涵盖杏仁核的功能，也未涉及该结构的处理过程对其作为重要组成部分的动机性边缘皮质纹状体回路的影响。在此，我们将探讨不同杏仁核核团与参与动机的皮质和纹状体区域之间的相互作用；近年来人们对这些相互连接和并行回路的理解日益加深。我们回顾了相关证据，即杏仁核存储记忆，使得最初无动机意义的刺激通过经典条件作用与具有动机相关性的结果建立联系，重要的是，这些结果可以是奖赏性的（如食物）或厌恶性的（如电击）。我们还思考了杏仁核所支持的不同心理过程，如条件性强化与惩罚、条件性动机与抑制，以及条件性趋近与回避行为，这些过程不仅在心理层面，而且在神经生物学层面都是可分离的，由边缘皮质纹状体回路中不同但相互重叠的神经回路介导。显然，杏仁核的作用不仅限于对厌恶性刺激进行编码，还包括对奖赏性刺激进行编码，这需要认识到杏仁核通过多种心理过程对奖赏性和恐惧性行为的介导作用。
