The amygdala is part of the so-called deep brain, in which basic emotions predominate, such as anger or fear, and the instinct for survival, basic, without a doubt, for any evolution. The amygdala, this almond-shaped structure, is characteristic of all vertebrates and is located deep in the temporal lobes, is part of the limbic system and treats everything related to our emotional reactions.
In neurobiology it is almost impossible to associate a single emotion or function with a structure, but when we talk about the amygdala, it is safe to say that it is one of the most important associated with the world of emotions. This is what makes us, for example, more malleable than any evolutionary family member, it is what allows us to escape from situations of risk or danger, but it is also what forces us to remember our childhood traumas and all that. made us suffer in a moment.
- Let’s include a simple example.
- We just finished working and driving to our car.
- Parked on a nearby street; it’s night and there’s no lighting.
- This gloom puts us on alert.
- Darkness is a scenario that we tend to associate evolutionaryly as an indicator of risk and danger; so we’re accelerating our steps to find the car.
- But something happens.
- Someone comes up and our logical reaction is to start running to escape.
Through this simple scene we can deduce many functions installed in the amygdala: it warns us that darkness is a risk and that this approaching person is also a risk; In addition, it creates new learnings by deducing, out of fear, that the next day I will not park the car on this street.
Memories and experiences with a lot of emotional load make our synaptic connections associate with this structure, causing effects such as tachycardia, increased breathing and release of stress hormones. People who, for example, have a damaged amygdala, would not be able to detect situations of risk or danger.
The amygdala helps us find an appropriate strategy after identifying a negative stimulus, but how can we identify that this stimulus can harm us? Through learning, through conditioning, through these basic concepts that, as a species, we recognize as harmful. Daniel Goleman, for example, introduced the concept of “amygdala abduction”, to refer to situations in which we let ourselves be carried away by fear or anguish in a way that is not adaptive, that is not logical and where despair prevents us find the correct answer.
The amygdala is also associated with our memories and memory, and there are many occasions when certain facts are associated with a very intense emotion: a childhood scene, a loss, a moment when we feel restlessness or fear, when our feelings are clearer, plus Neural connections occur around the limbic system and the amygdala , and many scientists study the determination of the biochemical details that affect this structure and apply them to possible therapeutic and pharmacological treatments to minimize childhood trauma.
But we must not simply associate fear with a negative impulse that can cause us trauma and psychological problems, on the contrary, it is a switch that warns and protects us, it is the sentinel that has allowed, generation after generation, that we can evolve according to our protection and the protection of the people around us. The amygdala is a fascinating primitive structure of our brain that cares for us and gives us a balanced view of the risks. Fear, like pleasure, is essential to our emotional wealth as living beings.