The role of the amygdala in the mediation of fear and anxiety has been extensively investigated. However, how the amygdala functions during the organization of the anxiety-like behaviors generated in the elevated plus maze ...

The reinforcement omission effect (ROE) has been attributed to both motivational and attentional consequences of surprising reinforcement omission. Recent evidence suggests that the basolateral complex of the amygdala is ...

Exposure to emotionally arousing experiences elicits a robust and persistent memory and enhances anxiety. The amygdala complex plays a key role in stress-induced emotional processing and in the fear memory formation. It ...

Functional laterality appears to be present in many brain functions in man and animals. The existence of paired neural circuits which act differentially to modulate a specific behavioural function seems to be an evolutionary ...

Excitation of the mesocorticolimbic pathway, originating from dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), may be important for the development of exaggerated fear responding. Among the forebrain regions ...

Evidence from appetitive Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning studies suggest that the amygdala is involved in modulation of responses correlated with motivational states, and therefore, to the modulation of processes ...

Fear generalization occurs when a response, previously acquired with a threatening stimulus, is transferred to a similar one. However, it could be maladaptive when stimuli that do not represent a real threat are appraised ...

Serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission has been associated with reward-related behaviour. Moreover, the serotonergic system modulates the basolateral amygdala (BLA), a structure involved in reward encoding, and reward prediction ...

Stress exposure induces long lasting neurobiological changes in selected brain areas, which could be associated with the emergence of negative emotional responses. In the present study, previously restrained animals exhibited ...