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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Jun 15.
Published in final edited form as: Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Jun 15;67(12):1117–1119. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.04.027

Figure 1. Amygdala Circuitry and the Fear Response.

Figure 1

Input, intra-amygdala, and output projections are shown schematically. Input pathways: these include connections with areas that mediate conditioned (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) pathways such as sensory cortical and thalamic areas, as well as areas that modulate stress-dependent effects on amygdala activation (e.g. bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) and prelimbic prefrontal cortex). Other areas may be involved in inhibiting amygdala activity and extinction of fear responses (e.g. infralimbic prefrontal cortex and hippocampus). Intra-Amygdala pathways: these include the projections from lateral amygdala (LA) and from LA and basolateral amygdala (BA) to the central amygdala (CeA). The LA and BA regions are involved in associative CS-US pairings as well as outputs to the CeA and other extra-amygdala areas which control avoidance and other behaviors. Output pathways: include projections to brainstem, hypothalamic, and cortical areas mediating fear and other emotional responses.