Figure 3:
Basic organization, information flow, and opponent-processing in the amygdala. a) Schematic diagram of a coronal section of unilateral amygdala with most prominent nuclei outlined according to one common scheme. The BLA is composed of: lateral (LA), basal (BA), and accessory basal (AB) nuclei. The central nucleus is composed of a lateral (CEl) and medial (CEm) segments. Three collections of GABAergic cells make up the intercalated cell masses (ITCs): the lateral paracapsular (lITC); dorsal (ITCd); and ventral (ITCv). b) Basic information flow through the amygdala: sensory information enters via the LA predominantly flowing from dorsolateral (LAdl) to ventrolateral (LAvl) and medial (LAm) divisions. From there two parallel pathways reach the central amygdala: 1) directly from LA to CEA (via CEl) (red dotted arrows); and, 2) via the the basal (BA) and accessory basal (AB) nuclei (blue dash arrows). c) Opponent processing in the BLA following the scheme of Herry et al., 2008: acquisition-coding cells (ACQ) receive context inputs from the ventral hippocampus (vHC) and project to the ventromedial PFC, which connects reciprocally with extinction-coding cells (EXT) in the BLA, with the vmPFC providing additional context information relevant for extinction. d) Opponent processing in the CEl following the scheme of Pare & Duvarci, 2012, with CElON = acquisition and CElOFF = extinction.