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The Fear Center of Your Brain (Amygdala Explained) — Transcript

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  1. 0:07let's talk about the amygdala
  2. 0:19all right guys welcome to psych
  3. 0:20explained in this video we're going to
  4. 0:22focus on the amygdala
  5. 0:24now from the introduction you already
  6. 0:25probably got a good sense of at least
  7. 0:27one of its major functions
  8. 0:28which is detecting a threat in the
  9. 0:30environment now i can't say this about
  10. 0:32all the parts of the brain but you can
  11. 0:33actually have some pretty good
  12. 0:34discussions and debates amongst your
  13. 0:36peers
  14. 0:36about the amygdala like what actually
  15. 0:39constitutes a threat
  16. 0:40right how does your brain know what i
  17. 0:42should be afraid of right what poses
  18. 0:44danger to us and what it can overlook
  19. 0:46when it comes to spiders as you saw on
  20. 0:48my shoulder
  21. 0:49is this something that our brain is
  22. 0:50wired to fear right for millions of
  23. 0:52years along with snakes and
  24. 0:53and fear of heights or is this a learned
  25. 0:56conditioned response
  26. 0:57so we'll touch on a few of these
  27. 0:58discussions and debates in this video
  28. 1:00but that's something you could think
  29. 1:01about at home
  30. 1:02now in this video we're going to focus
  31. 1:03on really two big things one is the four
  32. 1:06functions of the amygdala and we'll also
  33. 1:08touch on some animal research like how
  34. 1:10do we actually know
  35. 1:11about the function of the amygdala and
  36. 1:13what it does so we'll touch on that as
  37. 1:14well
  38. 1:15the first thing i want to do though is
  39. 1:17our this general structure right here
  40. 1:19let's just make sure we know what we're
  41. 1:21looking at and this will help us develop
  42. 1:23some background knowledge
  43. 1:24now i've actually highlighted the
  44. 1:26amygdala already okay you'll notice this
  45. 1:28tiny circle
  46. 1:29structure right here it's actually in
  47. 1:30the shape of an almond which is why they
  48. 1:32called the amygdala
  49. 1:33and let's write that in right here
  50. 1:38and the amygdala is located deep within
  51. 1:41our temporal lobes
  52. 1:42all right so let's do a little review of
  53. 1:44our lobes we have our
  54. 1:46frontal lobe we can remember that
  55. 1:47because it's in the front of our head
  56. 1:49we have our temporal lobes on the sides
  57. 1:52and we remember that because it's close
  58. 1:54to our temples we have our parietal lobe
  59. 1:56which sits on top of our head
  60. 1:58and our occipital lobe which is in the
  61. 2:00back of the head okay so that's a nice
  62. 2:01way to think about it
  63. 2:02now remember i said lobes plural which
  64. 2:05should tell you
  65. 2:06that we have two amygdala all right one
  66. 2:08on each side
  67. 2:09so we have two amygdalas we have two
  68. 2:12hippocampus we have two thalamus
  69. 2:14that's always important to know because
  70. 2:15we always see structures like this that
  71. 2:16looks like
  72. 2:17you know just this one cross section but
  73. 2:19remember we have two hemispheres which
  74. 2:20means we have two
  75. 2:21of each structure now another way to
  76. 2:24think about the amygdala
  77. 2:25is that it's a part of structures in an
  78. 2:27area called the
  79. 2:28limbic system so a lot of these
  80. 2:30structures here are part of what we call
  81. 2:32the
  82. 2:33limbic system okay now what is the
  83. 2:35limbic system
  84. 2:36and why are they all part of the same
  85. 2:38system well the limbic system usually
  86. 2:40involves two things
  87. 2:42emotions and memories okay so all these
  88. 2:45structures here typically deal with
  89. 2:46something whether it's emotions or
  90. 2:47memory so we have the thalamus
  91. 2:49we have the amygdala we have the
  92. 2:51hippocampus right here we have the
  93. 2:52hypothalamus
  94. 2:53so with the hypothalamus that's also the
  95. 2:56endocrine system so
  96. 2:57it controls more automatic things but if
  97. 2:59you ever read something inside textbook
  98. 3:01and it talks about the emotional center
  99. 3:02of our brain 10 out of 10 times they're
  100. 3:05talking about this area
  101. 3:06and i'll put a little arrow here that we
  102. 3:08call the limbic
  103. 3:10system okay so that's a nice way to
  104. 3:11think about that so the next question
  105. 3:13becomes
  106. 3:14how do we actually know what the
  107. 3:16amygdala does well a lot of it comes
  108. 3:18down to
  109. 3:18animal research and for my animal lovers
  110. 3:21you're not going to like this but a lot
  111. 3:22of times we do research on animals right
  112. 3:24and you might say well why do we do it
  113. 3:25on humans well according to the irb
  114. 3:28right institutional review board you
  115. 3:30know it's a little
  116. 3:31easier uh and more ethical to do on
  117. 3:34animals than humans
  118. 3:35so how do we actually know what the
  119. 3:36amygdala does well there's a procedure
  120. 3:40called lesion okay you could also call
  121. 3:43it deep lesioning
  122. 3:44where essentially what happens is you
  123. 3:46put a thin wire
  124. 3:48and you insert it into the brain
  125. 3:51of an animal right now this typically be
  126. 3:53you know psych research it could be lab
  127. 3:55rats or rhesus monkeys those are the two
  128. 3:57animals that are typically done
  129. 3:58and what lesioning or deep lesioning
  130. 4:00means essentially as you damage or
  131. 4:02remove a part of the brain okay
  132. 4:04and whatever part that's damaged you can
  133. 4:06call a lesion right
  134. 4:07so here's what i want you to think about
  135. 4:09if i deep lesion right if i
  136. 4:11damage or remove the amygdala what
  137. 4:14happened to the rest what happened to
  138. 4:15the
  139. 4:16the racist monkey or you right if you're
  140. 4:18if you're made to lowest damage
  141. 4:20what would be the consequences well
  142. 4:22thinking about what we
  143. 4:23already know now there could be two
  144. 4:25consequences
  145. 4:26one there's essentially a reduction in a
  146. 4:28fear response
  147. 4:30right i'm not going to say that there's
  148. 4:32no fear but it's going to be diminished
  149. 4:34or reduced
  150. 4:35that fight or flight response won't
  151. 4:37necessarily be there
  152. 4:39what we'll also see is a reduction in
  153. 4:41aggression
  154. 4:42okay reduction in aggression all right
  155. 4:45so those are two
  156. 4:47symptoms or side effects of what we see
  157. 4:49when it comes to lesioning in
  158. 4:51animals now what you could also do is
  159. 4:53the opposite what if you stimulate that
  160. 4:54part of the brain
  161. 4:55what if you take an electrode and you
  162. 4:57stimulate the amygdala
  163. 4:59well you'll see the opposite you'll see
  164. 5:00the raft becoming aggressive
  165. 5:02right you'll see the rats attacking
  166. 5:04another rat or they might become
  167. 5:05more fearful so that's kind of how we
  168. 5:07know what the amygdala does you either
  169. 5:09remove or destroy that part of the brain
  170. 5:11and see what happens
  171. 5:13or you stimulate that part of the brain
  172. 5:15and for a lot of research in psych
  173. 5:17right that's how it comes down to you
  174. 5:19you observe a damaged
  175. 5:21area okay all right so now that we have
  176. 5:23basic knowledge of the amygdala where
  177. 5:24it's located
  178. 5:25uh what system it's a part of and how we
  179. 5:27know it's a function
  180. 5:29let's actually get to specific functions
  181. 5:31okay and the first one we're going to
  182. 5:32talk about
  183. 5:34is actually detecting and as we talked
  184. 5:36about earlier
  185. 5:37is that it's good at detecting a threat
  186. 5:41okay now as i said before though what
  187. 5:44actually constitutes a threat right
  188. 5:46now from an evolutionary perspective
  189. 5:48it's something that causes us danger
  190. 5:49something that's going to impede on our
  191. 5:51survival right but realize
  192. 5:53it's the year 2021 okay so there's a lot
  193. 5:56of things that aren't
  194. 5:57attacking us right we don't have to
  195. 5:58worry about going outside and a
  196. 6:00woolly mammoth attacks us so what we
  197. 6:02find today
  198. 6:04is oftentimes we're afraid of things
  199. 6:06that aren't well we shouldn't be afraid
  200. 6:08of right it's a threat
  201. 6:08and our brain thinks it's a threat but
  202. 6:10it's not right in psychology we often
  203. 6:13call this
  204. 6:13the amygdala hijack okay now what is
  205. 6:16amygdala hijack
  206. 6:17essentially what it means is that our
  207. 6:19frontal lobe
  208. 6:20right this is where logic and rational
  209. 6:23thoughts take place
  210. 6:24gets overwhelmed by the amygdala in
  211. 6:27other words your emotions take over
  212. 6:29logic okay that's why people are afraid
  213. 6:31of public speaking right that's not
  214. 6:33really a threat to you you're not gonna
  215. 6:34get harm public speaking but your
  216. 6:36amygdala doesn't know that right your
  217. 6:37amygdala thinks that you're actually in
  218. 6:39danger
  219. 6:40and this takes over the rational part of
  220. 6:42our brain
  221. 6:43but for this purpose let's imagine that
  222. 6:45we actually do have a threat okay
  223. 6:46a spider's on top of you it just landed
  224. 6:49on you and yeah that's gonna be pretty
  225. 6:51freaky so we're gonna say that's a real
  226. 6:52threat
  227. 6:52so how does our brain react or detect
  228. 6:54the threat well remember
  229. 6:56our eye actually doesn't see the spider
  230. 6:58i know that might sound weird right our
  231. 7:00eye is just picking up
  232. 7:01light waves right so we have this
  233. 7:03stimulus right here
  234. 7:04our spider okay and let's think about
  235. 7:07parts of the eye some background
  236. 7:08knowledge we have our
  237. 7:09cornea and our lens and our pupil and
  238. 7:11our iris and then where does it
  239. 7:13eventually go
  240. 7:14well what's going to happen is this
  241. 7:16light is going to end up on the back of
  242. 7:18the eye
  243. 7:19right that we call the retina and this
  244. 7:21is where transduction occurs
  245. 7:23now let's think about transduction this
  246. 7:24happens in all of our senses
  247. 7:26it's where one type of energy converts
  248. 7:28into another type of energy
  249. 7:30right so it's light waves converting
  250. 7:32into electrical impulses or action
  251. 7:34potentials
  252. 7:35whether we're talking about hearing that
  253. 7:36would be sound waves
  254. 7:38converting into electrical impulses
  255. 7:40everything in our body comes in as an
  256. 7:41energy
  257. 7:42and then we have to convert it to action
  258. 7:44potentials right electricity
  259. 7:46so that information is going to travel
  260. 7:48up the
  261. 7:49optic nerve right optic nerve would be
  262. 7:51the eye and the auditory nerve would be
  263. 7:53the ear
  264. 7:54okay and then where's that information
  265. 7:57go right where the action potential is
  266. 7:58going to go
  267. 7:59well all this information everything
  268. 8:01from our senses goes to the same place
  269. 8:03it's going to go to a part of the brain
  270. 8:05called the thalamus
  271. 8:07okay except smell okay all the senses go
  272. 8:10to the thalamus
  273. 8:11except for smell we'll touch on that in
  274. 8:13another video okay
  275. 8:14now what happens after that well there's
  276. 8:16two things first
  277. 8:18there's going to be a direct pathway
  278. 8:19from the thalamus
  279. 8:21to our amygdala okay so it's going to
  280. 8:23synapse and communicate with our
  281. 8:24amygdala
  282. 8:26and then what's also going to happen is
  283. 8:27because it's division that information
  284. 8:29has to reach the
  285. 8:30visual cortex of the brain right so it's
  286. 8:32also
  287. 8:33going to synapse and go to the back of
  288. 8:36the brain
  289. 8:36that we call the visual cortex right
  290. 8:39with the occipital lobus right there
  291. 8:41so really there's two things that are
  292. 8:43happening right we've detected the
  293. 8:44stimulus
  294. 8:46and there's two parts it goes to the
  295. 8:47amygdala that's a direct pathway
  296. 8:49and the occipital lobe but here's what's
  297. 8:50interesting which comes first
  298. 8:52right does the information go to the
  299. 8:54cortex first where we think about
  300. 8:56what's happening or does it go to the
  301. 8:58amygdala first
  302. 8:59the answer is the latter it goes the
  303. 9:01amygdala first so what does that tell us
  304. 9:03it tells us that when there's danger
  305. 9:06your body reacts
  306. 9:07before you're even consciously aware
  307. 9:09that it's happening
  308. 9:10right how cool is that we could thank
  309. 9:12evolution for that one right
  310. 9:13if a car is coming at us right you jump
  311. 9:16out of the way before
  312. 9:18you even realize that it's a car coming
  313. 9:20at you right think about if you had to
  314. 9:22actually think about it first
  315. 9:23right there's a car coming at me what
  316. 9:25color car is it right here to think
  317. 9:26about it
  318. 9:27we're not going to survive so what's
  319. 9:29cool about this detective system is kind
  320. 9:31of like an early warning signal
  321. 9:32is that your body's going to react it's
  322. 9:34like a reflex and then it reaches
  323. 9:36the cortex and you think about what is
  324. 9:37happening so you don't even know it's a
  325. 9:38spider
  326. 9:39until after you've kind of jumped out of
  327. 9:41the way so that's kind of really cool to
  328. 9:42think about
  329. 9:43when it comes to detecting a threat all
  330. 9:46right
  331. 9:46let's go to our second function which
  332. 9:49we're going to talk about
  333. 9:50which is triggering trigger
  334. 9:56a body response okay i'm just going to
  335. 9:59write bot
  336. 9:59trigger response so what does this mean
  337. 10:02now that we have the early warning sign
  338. 10:03i always think of this like a bat signal
  339. 10:05right you know like everything's ready
  340. 10:06to go well then your body has to respond
  341. 10:10to this danger okay whether it's
  342. 10:12slapping the spider
  343. 10:13whether it is jumping out of the way of
  344. 10:15a car you know whatever it is has to be
  345. 10:16some sort of response
  346. 10:18now we could think about this a few ways
  347. 10:19but i'm actually going to come here and
  348. 10:21talk about the fight or flight response
  349. 10:23okay
  350. 10:24the way we're going to do this is think
  351. 10:25about okay now the information is in my
  352. 10:27brain
  353. 10:28okay how does my body react now many of
  354. 10:30you at home you know this feeling right
  355. 10:32sweating right perspiration or your
  356. 10:34heart's beating really quickly or
  357. 10:36you feel dizzy right you know those
  358. 10:37those those reactions
  359. 10:39but what is the actual order in which it
  360. 10:41occurs to respond to this threat
  361. 10:43so let's start with the first one let's
  362. 10:45say i'll use a different pattern
  363. 10:47let's say there is a threat right that's
  364. 10:49always got to be the first one okay
  365. 10:51there's got to be a threat
  366. 10:52and in this case it's going to be a
  367. 10:53spider okay well what happens next
  368. 10:56well after that as we already talked
  369. 10:58about it's going to go
  370. 11:00to our amygdala okay direct pathway from
  371. 11:03our thalamus
  372. 11:04to our amygdala
  373. 11:08amygdala now realize i didn't say cortex
  374. 11:11yet right because you haven't even
  375. 11:12thought about it yet so i'm gonna have a
  376. 11:14little
  377. 11:14kind of like a little sidebar here that
  378. 11:16says cortex in other words after it goes
  379. 11:18to the amygdala
  380. 11:19that's where you're gonna realize oh
  381. 11:21this is a spider right
  382. 11:22after the reflex occurs all right so
  383. 11:25what happens
  384. 11:25after the amygdala well it's going to go
  385. 11:28to region and i'm going to highlight it
  386. 11:30using green a region of a brain called
  387. 11:32the hypothalamus
  388. 11:34this is a cool structure the
  389. 11:36hypothalamus does
  390. 11:38everything right think about one
  391. 11:39structure of the brain that plays a role
  392. 11:41in
  393. 11:41everything the hypothalamus that i
  394. 11:43always think of it like the conductor of
  395. 11:44an orchestra right
  396. 11:45it kind of does this says okay pituitary
  397. 11:47gland i want you to go
  398. 11:48okay hormones i want you to release
  399. 11:49right it controls everything
  400. 11:51so that's going to be our next structure
  401. 11:53which is the hypothalamus
  402. 11:58both lms okay now this is where things
  403. 12:02start with this is where things are
  404. 12:03going to start to
  405. 12:04kind of release into our bloodstream and
  406. 12:06we're going to start having some
  407. 12:07hormones being released
  408. 12:08to kind of create that fight or flight
  409. 12:10response so we have our
  410. 12:11hypothalamus oops hypothalamus
  411. 12:15and then this is going to lead to our
  412. 12:17master gland that we call the pituitary
  413. 12:20gland
  414. 12:22now as i'm listening these i'm realizing
  415. 12:24you know a lot of this happens
  416. 12:25simultaneously
  417. 12:27right things happen so quickly in our
  418. 12:28body you could say this all happens at
  419. 12:30the same time
  420. 12:30but listing it out like this i think
  421. 12:32it's just a really good way to stay
  422. 12:33organized and structure our thinking
  423. 12:35okay
  424. 12:35all right so we have our threat which
  425. 12:37signals the amygdala which then will
  426. 12:39signal the cortex to be consciously
  427. 12:40aware of it
  428. 12:41which will then trigger the hypothalamus
  429. 12:43and the pituitary gland
  430. 12:45which will then lead to our major gland
  431. 12:48which kind of controls all of this
  432. 12:49stress
  433. 12:50and lead to threat which is we call the
  434. 12:52adrenal glands
  435. 12:54okay adrenal and you have two of them
  436. 12:56above our kidneys on both sides
  437. 12:58okay
  438. 13:01all right so here we go this is the nice
  439. 13:04structure to think about
  440. 13:05when it comes to the flight or flight
  441. 13:07response actually i'm going to add one
  442. 13:08more thing in there i'm actually going
  443. 13:10to delete that
  444. 13:11i'm going to erase that for a second
  445. 13:12here's a better one first
  446. 13:14let's go to our system let's go to our
  447. 13:17sympathetic there we go
  448. 13:21i was like i knew i was missing one our
  449. 13:23sympathetic nervous system
  450. 13:24that's much better now our sympathetic
  451. 13:26nervous system is really what we think
  452. 13:28about for fight-or-flight response
  453. 13:29it's part of our autonomic nervous
  454. 13:31system which is also part of our
  455. 13:33peripheral nervous system
  456. 13:34and this is going to kind of set the
  457. 13:35cascade of hormones
  458. 13:37then we have our adrenal gland there we
  459. 13:39go that's much better
  460. 13:41i knew i was missing one we have our
  461. 13:46adrenal okay our adrenal glands okay
  462. 13:49this is the structure of how it works
  463. 13:51now what are the hormones
  464. 13:53that our adrenal glands gonna produce to
  465. 13:55make we have that kind of
  466. 13:56fight-or-flight response we have a few
  467. 13:57of them
  468. 13:58and i want you to think about these at
  469. 13:59home we have our norepinephrine
  470. 14:01right that's going to kind of produce
  471. 14:02that fight-or-flight feeling
  472. 14:04we have adrenaline also called
  473. 14:07epinephrine
  474. 14:08and we have cortisol right the stress
  475. 14:10hormone so norepinephrine
  476. 14:12cortisol adrenaline or epinephrine those
  477. 14:15are the prime
  478. 14:16the primary three that are going to lead
  479. 14:17to this this fight-or-flight response
  480. 14:20now another way to think about this you
  481. 14:21might have heard this expression
  482. 14:23something called the hpa
  483. 14:26axis okay now what does that mean this
  484. 14:29kind of a general phrase to explain you
  485. 14:31know
  486. 14:31what our body does when there's a threat
  487. 14:33and why do they call it the hpa
  488. 14:35access h is for hypothalamus p is for
  489. 14:38pituitary
  490. 14:39and a is for adrenal hypothalamus
  491. 14:42pituitary adrenal hpa axis that's
  492. 14:44another way to think about
  493. 14:45this fight-or-flight response okay all
  494. 14:47right so we've detected a threat
  495. 14:49our body's responded we've released
  496. 14:51those hormones into the brain
  497. 14:52right hearts pumping the lungs have
  498. 14:55opened up so you could breathe better
  499. 14:57blood has rushed to my arm so i can
  500. 14:59punch harder or they rush to my
  501. 15:00legs so i get kicked or run faster right
  502. 15:03that kind of happens our pupils get
  503. 15:04bigger
  504. 15:05right this is all evolution right
  505. 15:06millions of years your body's prepared
  506. 15:08you
  507. 15:08for this right even though we're not
  508. 15:10fighting you know a woolly mammoth
  509. 15:12we're still your brain doesn't know that
  510. 15:14it's the year 2021
  511. 15:16your body still prepares as if it's in
  512. 15:18real real danger okay
  513. 15:20okay so what's another response um let's
  514. 15:22go
  515. 15:23with what we call fear
  516. 15:26conditioning okay this is an interesting
  517. 15:29one
  518. 15:30now when you hear the word conditioning
  519. 15:32you know what i think about
  520. 15:34i think about behavioral perspective i
  521. 15:36think about bf skinner and i think about
  522. 15:38ivan pavlov right
  523. 15:40classical conditioning another thing
  524. 15:42about we know about pavlov and classical
  525. 15:44conditioning right
  526. 15:45we have a dog salivating to the sound of
  527. 15:48a bell right very classical study of of
  528. 15:50conditioning right
  529. 15:51and what he found was is that if you
  530. 15:53have a neutral stimulus like a tone
  531. 15:55and you pair it with an unconditioned
  532. 15:57stimulus like meat and you pair them
  533. 15:59together
  534. 15:59you know tone meat tone meat toned meat
  535. 16:02the dog will eventually salivate at the
  536. 16:04sound of the tone
  537. 16:05which will become a conditioned stimulus
  538. 16:07right i know there's a lot of vocab in
  539. 16:08there but let's think about pavlovian
  540. 16:10terms
  541. 16:10and this is what our magdal essentially
  542. 16:12does which is even though
  543. 16:14our amigo is right here it's right next
  544. 16:16to a part of a brain that deals with
  545. 16:18memory
  546. 16:19and that's the structure right here
  547. 16:20that's called the hippocampus
  548. 16:22okay and i'll shade the hippocampus in
  549. 16:24right here
  550. 16:26okay so these connect to each other they
  551. 16:28coordinate with each other right they
  552. 16:29communicate with each other
  553. 16:30our hippocampus and our amygdala
  554. 16:33coordinate with each other
  555. 16:34okay so what do you mean by fear
  556. 16:36conditioning well if you've ever been in
  557. 16:38a trim
  558. 16:38a traumatic experience right well your
  559. 16:41brain is going to form associations
  560. 16:43right if you're in a car accident for
  561. 16:45example you might not only be afraid or
  562. 16:48be afraid of that car of that of that
  563. 16:50accident but you
  564. 16:51also might have a conditioned response
  565. 16:52to just sing the car right or you see
  566. 16:54the car on the road and all of a sudden
  567. 16:56your heart starts to pound
  568. 16:57your brain has formed an association and
  569. 16:59a memory of that event
  570. 17:01that's what you mean by fear
  571. 17:02conditioning now how can we think about
  572. 17:04this in terms of
  573. 17:05conditioning terms and we talked about
  574. 17:07animal research before
  575. 17:08well let's do it up here right we have
  576. 17:10our unconditioned stimulus
  577. 17:13let's say is going to be our noise
  578. 17:16okay so we're doing a little wrath study
  579. 17:18and our unconditioned response
  580. 17:21um is going to be actually yeah let's do
  581. 17:24fear
  582. 17:26okay i'll actually instead of noise
  583. 17:28let's do shock there we go that's better
  584. 17:32okay so imagine for example we have a
  585. 17:34rat in a cage
  586. 17:35and we give it a mild electric shock
  587. 17:37okay that will automatically produce a
  588. 17:39fear response
  589. 17:41but what if we introduce a neutral
  590. 17:43stimulus
  591. 17:44which is a tone like a little sound okay
  592. 17:47so we have a tone
  593. 17:49and then and then electrocution tone
  594. 17:51electrocution tonal execution
  595. 17:53well over time the rat's going to learn
  596. 17:55to make an association and form a memory
  597. 17:58that the tone is going to lead to
  598. 17:59something bad right an aversive stimulus
  599. 18:01and over time the the tone is will
  600. 18:04become the conditioned stimulus
  601. 18:06and the there we go the tone which will
  602. 18:09lead
  603. 18:10to a conditioned response of fear
  604. 18:13right now if you're like oh i gotta
  605. 18:15remember my pavlovian classical
  606. 18:16conditioning terms right unconditioned
  607. 18:18stimulus unconditional response
  608. 18:20this is a nice way to review it right
  609. 18:22that is fear conditioning it happens
  610. 18:23with humans too
  611. 18:25we form associations and we remember it
  612. 18:27lead to some traumatic events
  613. 18:29and that's going to trigger our response
  614. 18:31as well okay
  615. 18:32all right now the last function i'm not
  616. 18:35going to go too deep in this but it is
  617. 18:36important to note
  618. 18:37there's a lot of current research to
  619. 18:39show that your amygdala
  620. 18:41just doesn't deal with fear right in
  621. 18:43negative things
  622. 18:44but it actually could deal with positive
  623. 18:46emotions as well
  624. 18:48you might be thinking what positive
  625. 18:50emotions
  626. 18:52so there's a lot of current research to
  627. 18:54show that the amygdala
  628. 18:56is not just about fear it's about the
  629. 18:58intensity of the emotion
  630. 18:59in other words yes it does respond to
  631. 19:01fear but that's because it's a very
  632. 19:03intense emotion
  633. 19:04and we find is that your middle will
  634. 19:06also fire some action potentials
  635. 19:08if the emotion is very positive like
  636. 19:10something really good happened to you
  637. 19:12right you won an award you got a really
  638. 19:13good grade
  639. 19:14um you won the lottery or something
  640. 19:16really really big happened
  641. 19:18we find your amygdala is also going to
  642. 19:19respond to that as well
  643. 19:21so i'm not going to go to be too deep
  644. 19:22into it but it is important to know that
  645. 19:24there is research coming out
  646. 19:26that it does play a role in positive
  647. 19:28emotion so
  648. 19:29i guess the big takeaway is that the
  649. 19:30amygdala is not just about fear
  650. 19:32it's the intensity of emotions as well
  651. 19:35whether positive
  652. 19:36or whether they're negative
  653. 19:39all right guys i want to thank you for
  654. 19:40watching the psych explained video i
  655. 19:42really hope you took something away
  656. 19:43once again don't forget to like the
  657. 19:45video subscribe and leave your comments
  658. 19:47below
  659. 19:47until next time

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