Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States; Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States.
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States.
Handb Clin Neurol. 2022;187:381-403. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-823493-8.00017-1.
The amygdala is a hub of subcortical region that is crucial in a wide array of affective and motivation-related behaviors. While early research contributed significantly to our understanding of this region's extensive connections to other subcortical and cortical regions, recent methodological advances have enabled researchers to better understand the details of these circuits and their behavioral contributions. Much of this work has focused specifically on investigating the role of amygdala circuits in social cognition. In this chapter, we review both long-standing knowledge and novel research on the amygdala's structure, function, and involvement in social cognition. We focus specifically on the amygdala's circuits with the medial prefrontal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, and the hippocampus, as these regions share extensive anatomic and functional connections with the amygdala. Furthermore, we discuss how dysfunction in the amygdala may contribute to social deficits in clinical disorders including autism spectrum disorder, social anxiety disorder, and Williams syndrome. We conclude that social functions mediated by the amygdala are orchestrated through multiple intricate interactions between the amygdala and its interconnected brain regions, endorsing the importance of understanding the amygdala from network perspectives.
杏仁核是皮质下区域的枢纽，在广泛的情感和动机相关行为中起着关键作用。虽然早期的研究对我们理解该区域与其他皮质下和皮质区域的广泛连接做出了重大贡献，但最近的方法学进步使研究人员能够更好地了解这些回路的细节及其对行为的贡献。这项工作的很大一部分特别关注研究杏仁核回路在社会认知中的作用。在这一章中，我们回顾了杏仁核的结构、功能以及在社会认知中的作用的既有知识和新研究。我们特别关注杏仁核与内侧前额叶皮质、眶额皮质和海马体的回路，因为这些区域与杏仁核有广泛的解剖和功能连接。此外，我们讨论了杏仁核功能障碍如何导致包括自闭症谱系障碍、社交焦虑障碍和威廉姆斯综合征在内的临床疾病中的社交缺陷。我们得出的结论是，杏仁核介导的社会功能是通过杏仁核及其相互连接的大脑区域之间的多种复杂相互作用来协调的，这支持了从网络角度理解杏仁核的重要性。
