# Amygdala



## TheOutsider (Mar 4, 2010)

Can it be removed?
All I have found has to do with monkeys.


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

We are better off learning how to think and react differently. It'll retrain the amygdala.


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## LALoner (Dec 3, 2008)

butiadoreyou said:


> Can it be removed?
> All I have found has to do with monkeys.


Didn't you watch Firefly? They removed River Tam's amyglada, look what happened.


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

if ever i have a baby girl, I want to name her Amyglada.


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## ozkr (Dec 2, 2005)

Is that the girl from Star Wars? Why would you want to remove her?


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## TheOutsider (Mar 4, 2010)

I'm glad everyone thinks this is a joke.


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

^ sorry. surely there is a better way than having part of your brain removed.


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## ozkr (Dec 2, 2005)

butiadoreyou said:


> I'm glad everyone thinks this is a joke.


You do realize that all the amygdala does is this:


millenniumman75 said:


> We are better off learning how to think and react differently. It'll retrain the amygdala.


aka it takes care of learning, reacting to emotions, and retaining memories, right?


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## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

^yes, put very simply. this is what CBT can help with, ,the establishing of new neural pathways, part of which the amygdala governs. Intense, focused, and prolonged CBT will do it, if one perseveres. It takes hard work, but I would choose that over surgery to remove a vital part of myself any day.


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## VagueResemblance (Apr 17, 2010)

butiadoreyou said:


> I'm glad everyone thinks this is a joke.


Well, really, you're talking about destroying a rather important part of the brain as a cure.

Been done by the way. Read about icepick lobotomies. They worked out splendidly!


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## lyssado707 (Oct 29, 2004)

No it can't. I was wondering the same thing, but then i learned in neuro that w/o it, people would make dumb decisions because they wouldn't have any emotional consequences for their actions or something along those lines.


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## TheOutsider (Mar 4, 2010)

lyssado707 said:


> No it can't. I was wondering the same thing, but then i learned in neuro that w/o it, people would make dumb decisions because they wouldn't have any emotional consequences for their actions or something along those lines.


Thank you. I had heard somewhere about it being removed in, I believe, people with tourettes(sp) or maybe it was something else, but I couldn't find anything online.


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## leon21 (Nov 8, 2009)

Life without amygdala:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMo...shows-fear/story?id=12404875&tqkw=&tqshow=GMA

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2810%2901508-3


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## iuseings (Nov 11, 2009)

The amygdala is a very important part of your brain, although it's main purpose is to react to negative sensory input. The amygdala has other uses, though, in the neural circuit and you can lose important emotional, instinctive responses if it was removed. 
The hypothesis is that people with MDS and SAD have amygdala's that are actually on average 25% smaller! and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which communicates with our amygdala is also hypothesized to be smaller. The loop between the ACC and the amygdala is inhibitory and our structures seem to not function as effectively in inhibition of the amygdala from the ACC after stimulation of the amygdala. 
They hypothesize the reason for the weaker loop is the presence of two or more short-form alleles for 5-HTT (serotonin). The short-form seems to effect development of the brain as well as how sensitive the brain is to lack of serotonin or excess serotonin.


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