The Fear Center of Your Brain (Amygdala Explained) — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:07let's talk about the amygdala
- 0:19all right guys welcome to psych
- 0:20explained in this video we're going to
- 0:22focus on the amygdala
- 0:24now from the introduction you already
- 0:25probably got a good sense of at least
- 0:27one of its major functions
- 0:28which is detecting a threat in the
- 0:30environment now i can't say this about
- 0:32all the parts of the brain but you can
- 0:33actually have some pretty good
- 0:34discussions and debates amongst your
- 0:36peers
- 0:36about the amygdala like what actually
- 0:39constitutes a threat
- 0:40right how does your brain know what i
- 0:42should be afraid of right what poses
- 0:44danger to us and what it can overlook
- 0:46when it comes to spiders as you saw on
- 0:48my shoulder
- 0:49is this something that our brain is
- 0:50wired to fear right for millions of
- 0:52years along with snakes and
- 0:53and fear of heights or is this a learned
- 0:56conditioned response
- 0:57so we'll touch on a few of these
- 0:58discussions and debates in this video
- 1:00but that's something you could think
- 1:01about at home
- 1:02now in this video we're going to focus
- 1:03on really two big things one is the four
- 1:06functions of the amygdala and we'll also
- 1:08touch on some animal research like how
- 1:10do we actually know
- 1:11about the function of the amygdala and
- 1:13what it does so we'll touch on that as
- 1:14well
- 1:15the first thing i want to do though is
- 1:17our this general structure right here
- 1:19let's just make sure we know what we're
- 1:21looking at and this will help us develop
- 1:23some background knowledge
- 1:24now i've actually highlighted the
- 1:26amygdala already okay you'll notice this
- 1:28tiny circle
- 1:29structure right here it's actually in
- 1:30the shape of an almond which is why they
- 1:32called the amygdala
- 1:33and let's write that in right here
- 1:38and the amygdala is located deep within
- 1:41our temporal lobes
- 1:42all right so let's do a little review of
- 1:44our lobes we have our
- 1:46frontal lobe we can remember that
- 1:47because it's in the front of our head
- 1:49we have our temporal lobes on the sides
- 1:52and we remember that because it's close
- 1:54to our temples we have our parietal lobe
- 1:56which sits on top of our head
- 1:58and our occipital lobe which is in the
- 2:00back of the head okay so that's a nice
- 2:01way to think about it
- 2:02now remember i said lobes plural which
- 2:05should tell you
- 2:06that we have two amygdala all right one
- 2:08on each side
- 2:09so we have two amygdalas we have two
- 2:12hippocampus we have two thalamus
- 2:14that's always important to know because
- 2:15we always see structures like this that
- 2:16looks like
- 2:17you know just this one cross section but
- 2:19remember we have two hemispheres which
- 2:20means we have two
- 2:21of each structure now another way to
- 2:24think about the amygdala
- 2:25is that it's a part of structures in an
- 2:27area called the
- 2:28limbic system so a lot of these
- 2:30structures here are part of what we call
- 2:32the
- 2:33limbic system okay now what is the
- 2:35limbic system
- 2:36and why are they all part of the same
- 2:38system well the limbic system usually
- 2:40involves two things
- 2:42emotions and memories okay so all these
- 2:45structures here typically deal with
- 2:46something whether it's emotions or
- 2:47memory so we have the thalamus
- 2:49we have the amygdala we have the
- 2:51hippocampus right here we have the
- 2:52hypothalamus
- 2:53so with the hypothalamus that's also the
- 2:56endocrine system so
- 2:57it controls more automatic things but if
- 2:59you ever read something inside textbook
- 3:01and it talks about the emotional center
- 3:02of our brain 10 out of 10 times they're
- 3:05talking about this area
- 3:06and i'll put a little arrow here that we
- 3:08call the limbic
- 3:10system okay so that's a nice way to
- 3:11think about that so the next question
- 3:13becomes
- 3:14how do we actually know what the
- 3:16amygdala does well a lot of it comes
- 3:18down to
- 3:18animal research and for my animal lovers
- 3:21you're not going to like this but a lot
- 3:22of times we do research on animals right
- 3:24and you might say well why do we do it
- 3:25on humans well according to the irb
- 3:28right institutional review board you
- 3:30know it's a little
- 3:31easier uh and more ethical to do on
- 3:34animals than humans
- 3:35so how do we actually know what the
- 3:36amygdala does well there's a procedure
- 3:40called lesion okay you could also call
- 3:43it deep lesioning
- 3:44where essentially what happens is you
- 3:46put a thin wire
- 3:48and you insert it into the brain
- 3:51of an animal right now this typically be
- 3:53you know psych research it could be lab
- 3:55rats or rhesus monkeys those are the two
- 3:57animals that are typically done
- 3:58and what lesioning or deep lesioning
- 4:00means essentially as you damage or
- 4:02remove a part of the brain okay
- 4:04and whatever part that's damaged you can
- 4:06call a lesion right
- 4:07so here's what i want you to think about
- 4:09if i deep lesion right if i
- 4:11damage or remove the amygdala what
- 4:14happened to the rest what happened to
- 4:15the
- 4:16the racist monkey or you right if you're
- 4:18if you're made to lowest damage
- 4:20what would be the consequences well
- 4:22thinking about what we
- 4:23already know now there could be two
- 4:25consequences
- 4:26one there's essentially a reduction in a
- 4:28fear response
- 4:30right i'm not going to say that there's
- 4:32no fear but it's going to be diminished
- 4:34or reduced
- 4:35that fight or flight response won't
- 4:37necessarily be there
- 4:39what we'll also see is a reduction in
- 4:41aggression
- 4:42okay reduction in aggression all right
- 4:45so those are two
- 4:47symptoms or side effects of what we see
- 4:49when it comes to lesioning in
- 4:51animals now what you could also do is
- 4:53the opposite what if you stimulate that
- 4:54part of the brain
- 4:55what if you take an electrode and you
- 4:57stimulate the amygdala
- 4:59well you'll see the opposite you'll see
- 5:00the raft becoming aggressive
- 5:02right you'll see the rats attacking
- 5:04another rat or they might become
- 5:05more fearful so that's kind of how we
- 5:07know what the amygdala does you either
- 5:09remove or destroy that part of the brain
- 5:11and see what happens
- 5:13or you stimulate that part of the brain
- 5:15and for a lot of research in psych
- 5:17right that's how it comes down to you
- 5:19you observe a damaged
- 5:21area okay all right so now that we have
- 5:23basic knowledge of the amygdala where
- 5:24it's located
- 5:25uh what system it's a part of and how we
- 5:27know it's a function
- 5:29let's actually get to specific functions
- 5:31okay and the first one we're going to
- 5:32talk about
- 5:34is actually detecting and as we talked
- 5:36about earlier
- 5:37is that it's good at detecting a threat
- 5:41okay now as i said before though what
- 5:44actually constitutes a threat right
- 5:46now from an evolutionary perspective
- 5:48it's something that causes us danger
- 5:49something that's going to impede on our
- 5:51survival right but realize
- 5:53it's the year 2021 okay so there's a lot
- 5:56of things that aren't
- 5:57attacking us right we don't have to
- 5:58worry about going outside and a
- 6:00woolly mammoth attacks us so what we
- 6:02find today
- 6:04is oftentimes we're afraid of things
- 6:06that aren't well we shouldn't be afraid
- 6:08of right it's a threat
- 6:08and our brain thinks it's a threat but
- 6:10it's not right in psychology we often
- 6:13call this
- 6:13the amygdala hijack okay now what is
- 6:16amygdala hijack
- 6:17essentially what it means is that our
- 6:19frontal lobe
- 6:20right this is where logic and rational
- 6:23thoughts take place
- 6:24gets overwhelmed by the amygdala in
- 6:27other words your emotions take over
- 6:29logic okay that's why people are afraid
- 6:31of public speaking right that's not
- 6:33really a threat to you you're not gonna
- 6:34get harm public speaking but your
- 6:36amygdala doesn't know that right your
- 6:37amygdala thinks that you're actually in
- 6:39danger
- 6:40and this takes over the rational part of
- 6:42our brain
- 6:43but for this purpose let's imagine that
- 6:45we actually do have a threat okay
- 6:46a spider's on top of you it just landed
- 6:49on you and yeah that's gonna be pretty
- 6:51freaky so we're gonna say that's a real
- 6:52threat
- 6:52so how does our brain react or detect
- 6:54the threat well remember
- 6:56our eye actually doesn't see the spider
- 6:58i know that might sound weird right our
- 7:00eye is just picking up
- 7:01light waves right so we have this
- 7:03stimulus right here
- 7:04our spider okay and let's think about
- 7:07parts of the eye some background
- 7:08knowledge we have our
- 7:09cornea and our lens and our pupil and
- 7:11our iris and then where does it
- 7:13eventually go
- 7:14well what's going to happen is this
- 7:16light is going to end up on the back of
- 7:18the eye
- 7:19right that we call the retina and this
- 7:21is where transduction occurs
- 7:23now let's think about transduction this
- 7:24happens in all of our senses
- 7:26it's where one type of energy converts
- 7:28into another type of energy
- 7:30right so it's light waves converting
- 7:32into electrical impulses or action
- 7:34potentials
- 7:35whether we're talking about hearing that
- 7:36would be sound waves
- 7:38converting into electrical impulses
- 7:40everything in our body comes in as an
- 7:41energy
- 7:42and then we have to convert it to action
- 7:44potentials right electricity
- 7:46so that information is going to travel
- 7:48up the
- 7:49optic nerve right optic nerve would be
- 7:51the eye and the auditory nerve would be
- 7:53the ear
- 7:54okay and then where's that information
- 7:57go right where the action potential is
- 7:58going to go
- 7:59well all this information everything
- 8:01from our senses goes to the same place
- 8:03it's going to go to a part of the brain
- 8:05called the thalamus
- 8:07okay except smell okay all the senses go
- 8:10to the thalamus
- 8:11except for smell we'll touch on that in
- 8:13another video okay
- 8:14now what happens after that well there's
- 8:16two things first
- 8:18there's going to be a direct pathway
- 8:19from the thalamus
- 8:21to our amygdala okay so it's going to
- 8:23synapse and communicate with our
- 8:24amygdala
- 8:26and then what's also going to happen is
- 8:27because it's division that information
- 8:29has to reach the
- 8:30visual cortex of the brain right so it's
- 8:32also
- 8:33going to synapse and go to the back of
- 8:36the brain
- 8:36that we call the visual cortex right
- 8:39with the occipital lobus right there
- 8:41so really there's two things that are
- 8:43happening right we've detected the
- 8:44stimulus
- 8:46and there's two parts it goes to the
- 8:47amygdala that's a direct pathway
- 8:49and the occipital lobe but here's what's
- 8:50interesting which comes first
- 8:52right does the information go to the
- 8:54cortex first where we think about
- 8:56what's happening or does it go to the
- 8:58amygdala first
- 8:59the answer is the latter it goes the
- 9:01amygdala first so what does that tell us
- 9:03it tells us that when there's danger
- 9:06your body reacts
- 9:07before you're even consciously aware
- 9:09that it's happening
- 9:10right how cool is that we could thank
- 9:12evolution for that one right
- 9:13if a car is coming at us right you jump
- 9:16out of the way before
- 9:18you even realize that it's a car coming
- 9:20at you right think about if you had to
- 9:22actually think about it first
- 9:23right there's a car coming at me what
- 9:25color car is it right here to think
- 9:26about it
- 9:27we're not going to survive so what's
- 9:29cool about this detective system is kind
- 9:31of like an early warning signal
- 9:32is that your body's going to react it's
- 9:34like a reflex and then it reaches
- 9:36the cortex and you think about what is
- 9:37happening so you don't even know it's a
- 9:38spider
- 9:39until after you've kind of jumped out of
- 9:41the way so that's kind of really cool to
- 9:42think about
- 9:43when it comes to detecting a threat all
- 9:46right
- 9:46let's go to our second function which
- 9:49we're going to talk about
- 9:50which is triggering trigger
- 9:56a body response okay i'm just going to
- 9:59write bot
- 9:59trigger response so what does this mean
- 10:02now that we have the early warning sign
- 10:03i always think of this like a bat signal
- 10:05right you know like everything's ready
- 10:06to go well then your body has to respond
- 10:10to this danger okay whether it's
- 10:12slapping the spider
- 10:13whether it is jumping out of the way of
- 10:15a car you know whatever it is has to be
- 10:16some sort of response
- 10:18now we could think about this a few ways
- 10:19but i'm actually going to come here and
- 10:21talk about the fight or flight response
- 10:23okay
- 10:24the way we're going to do this is think
- 10:25about okay now the information is in my
- 10:27brain
- 10:28okay how does my body react now many of
- 10:30you at home you know this feeling right
- 10:32sweating right perspiration or your
- 10:34heart's beating really quickly or
- 10:36you feel dizzy right you know those
- 10:37those those reactions
- 10:39but what is the actual order in which it
- 10:41occurs to respond to this threat
- 10:43so let's start with the first one let's
- 10:45say i'll use a different pattern
- 10:47let's say there is a threat right that's
- 10:49always got to be the first one okay
- 10:51there's got to be a threat
- 10:52and in this case it's going to be a
- 10:53spider okay well what happens next
- 10:56well after that as we already talked
- 10:58about it's going to go
- 11:00to our amygdala okay direct pathway from
- 11:03our thalamus
- 11:04to our amygdala
- 11:08amygdala now realize i didn't say cortex
- 11:11yet right because you haven't even
- 11:12thought about it yet so i'm gonna have a
- 11:14little
- 11:14kind of like a little sidebar here that
- 11:16says cortex in other words after it goes
- 11:18to the amygdala
- 11:19that's where you're gonna realize oh
- 11:21this is a spider right
- 11:22after the reflex occurs all right so
- 11:25what happens
- 11:25after the amygdala well it's going to go
- 11:28to region and i'm going to highlight it
- 11:30using green a region of a brain called
- 11:32the hypothalamus
- 11:34this is a cool structure the
- 11:36hypothalamus does
- 11:38everything right think about one
- 11:39structure of the brain that plays a role
- 11:41in
- 11:41everything the hypothalamus that i
- 11:43always think of it like the conductor of
- 11:44an orchestra right
- 11:45it kind of does this says okay pituitary
- 11:47gland i want you to go
- 11:48okay hormones i want you to release
- 11:49right it controls everything
- 11:51so that's going to be our next structure
- 11:53which is the hypothalamus
- 11:58both lms okay now this is where things
- 12:02start with this is where things are
- 12:03going to start to
- 12:04kind of release into our bloodstream and
- 12:06we're going to start having some
- 12:07hormones being released
- 12:08to kind of create that fight or flight
- 12:10response so we have our
- 12:11hypothalamus oops hypothalamus
- 12:15and then this is going to lead to our
- 12:17master gland that we call the pituitary
- 12:20gland
- 12:22now as i'm listening these i'm realizing
- 12:24you know a lot of this happens
- 12:25simultaneously
- 12:27right things happen so quickly in our
- 12:28body you could say this all happens at
- 12:30the same time
- 12:30but listing it out like this i think
- 12:32it's just a really good way to stay
- 12:33organized and structure our thinking
- 12:35okay
- 12:35all right so we have our threat which
- 12:37signals the amygdala which then will
- 12:39signal the cortex to be consciously
- 12:40aware of it
- 12:41which will then trigger the hypothalamus
- 12:43and the pituitary gland
- 12:45which will then lead to our major gland
- 12:48which kind of controls all of this
- 12:49stress
- 12:50and lead to threat which is we call the
- 12:52adrenal glands
- 12:54okay adrenal and you have two of them
- 12:56above our kidneys on both sides
- 12:58okay
- 13:01all right so here we go this is the nice
- 13:04structure to think about
- 13:05when it comes to the flight or flight
- 13:07response actually i'm going to add one
- 13:08more thing in there i'm actually going
- 13:10to delete that
- 13:11i'm going to erase that for a second
- 13:12here's a better one first
- 13:14let's go to our system let's go to our
- 13:17sympathetic there we go
- 13:21i was like i knew i was missing one our
- 13:23sympathetic nervous system
- 13:24that's much better now our sympathetic
- 13:26nervous system is really what we think
- 13:28about for fight-or-flight response
- 13:29it's part of our autonomic nervous
- 13:31system which is also part of our
- 13:33peripheral nervous system
- 13:34and this is going to kind of set the
- 13:35cascade of hormones
- 13:37then we have our adrenal gland there we
- 13:39go that's much better
- 13:41i knew i was missing one we have our
- 13:46adrenal okay our adrenal glands okay
- 13:49this is the structure of how it works
- 13:51now what are the hormones
- 13:53that our adrenal glands gonna produce to
- 13:55make we have that kind of
- 13:56fight-or-flight response we have a few
- 13:57of them
- 13:58and i want you to think about these at
- 13:59home we have our norepinephrine
- 14:01right that's going to kind of produce
- 14:02that fight-or-flight feeling
- 14:04we have adrenaline also called
- 14:07epinephrine
- 14:08and we have cortisol right the stress
- 14:10hormone so norepinephrine
- 14:12cortisol adrenaline or epinephrine those
- 14:15are the prime
- 14:16the primary three that are going to lead
- 14:17to this this fight-or-flight response
- 14:20now another way to think about this you
- 14:21might have heard this expression
- 14:23something called the hpa
- 14:26axis okay now what does that mean this
- 14:29kind of a general phrase to explain you
- 14:31know
- 14:31what our body does when there's a threat
- 14:33and why do they call it the hpa
- 14:35access h is for hypothalamus p is for
- 14:38pituitary
- 14:39and a is for adrenal hypothalamus
- 14:42pituitary adrenal hpa axis that's
- 14:44another way to think about
- 14:45this fight-or-flight response okay all
- 14:47right so we've detected a threat
- 14:49our body's responded we've released
- 14:51those hormones into the brain
- 14:52right hearts pumping the lungs have
- 14:55opened up so you could breathe better
- 14:57blood has rushed to my arm so i can
- 14:59punch harder or they rush to my
- 15:00legs so i get kicked or run faster right
- 15:03that kind of happens our pupils get
- 15:04bigger
- 15:05right this is all evolution right
- 15:06millions of years your body's prepared
- 15:08you
- 15:08for this right even though we're not
- 15:10fighting you know a woolly mammoth
- 15:12we're still your brain doesn't know that
- 15:14it's the year 2021
- 15:16your body still prepares as if it's in
- 15:18real real danger okay
- 15:20okay so what's another response um let's
- 15:22go
- 15:23with what we call fear
- 15:26conditioning okay this is an interesting
- 15:29one
- 15:30now when you hear the word conditioning
- 15:32you know what i think about
- 15:34i think about behavioral perspective i
- 15:36think about bf skinner and i think about
- 15:38ivan pavlov right
- 15:40classical conditioning another thing
- 15:42about we know about pavlov and classical
- 15:44conditioning right
- 15:45we have a dog salivating to the sound of
- 15:48a bell right very classical study of of
- 15:50conditioning right
- 15:51and what he found was is that if you
- 15:53have a neutral stimulus like a tone
- 15:55and you pair it with an unconditioned
- 15:57stimulus like meat and you pair them
- 15:59together
- 15:59you know tone meat tone meat toned meat
- 16:02the dog will eventually salivate at the
- 16:04sound of the tone
- 16:05which will become a conditioned stimulus
- 16:07right i know there's a lot of vocab in
- 16:08there but let's think about pavlovian
- 16:10terms
- 16:10and this is what our magdal essentially
- 16:12does which is even though
- 16:14our amigo is right here it's right next
- 16:16to a part of a brain that deals with
- 16:18memory
- 16:19and that's the structure right here
- 16:20that's called the hippocampus
- 16:22okay and i'll shade the hippocampus in
- 16:24right here
- 16:26okay so these connect to each other they
- 16:28coordinate with each other right they
- 16:29communicate with each other
- 16:30our hippocampus and our amygdala
- 16:33coordinate with each other
- 16:34okay so what do you mean by fear
- 16:36conditioning well if you've ever been in
- 16:38a trim
- 16:38a traumatic experience right well your
- 16:41brain is going to form associations
- 16:43right if you're in a car accident for
- 16:45example you might not only be afraid or
- 16:48be afraid of that car of that of that
- 16:50accident but you
- 16:51also might have a conditioned response
- 16:52to just sing the car right or you see
- 16:54the car on the road and all of a sudden
- 16:56your heart starts to pound
- 16:57your brain has formed an association and
- 16:59a memory of that event
- 17:01that's what you mean by fear
- 17:02conditioning now how can we think about
- 17:04this in terms of
- 17:05conditioning terms and we talked about
- 17:07animal research before
- 17:08well let's do it up here right we have
- 17:10our unconditioned stimulus
- 17:13let's say is going to be our noise
- 17:16okay so we're doing a little wrath study
- 17:18and our unconditioned response
- 17:21um is going to be actually yeah let's do
- 17:24fear
- 17:26okay i'll actually instead of noise
- 17:28let's do shock there we go that's better
- 17:32okay so imagine for example we have a
- 17:34rat in a cage
- 17:35and we give it a mild electric shock
- 17:37okay that will automatically produce a
- 17:39fear response
- 17:41but what if we introduce a neutral
- 17:43stimulus
- 17:44which is a tone like a little sound okay
- 17:47so we have a tone
- 17:49and then and then electrocution tone
- 17:51electrocution tonal execution
- 17:53well over time the rat's going to learn
- 17:55to make an association and form a memory
- 17:58that the tone is going to lead to
- 17:59something bad right an aversive stimulus
- 18:01and over time the the tone is will
- 18:04become the conditioned stimulus
- 18:06and the there we go the tone which will
- 18:09lead
- 18:10to a conditioned response of fear
- 18:13right now if you're like oh i gotta
- 18:15remember my pavlovian classical
- 18:16conditioning terms right unconditioned
- 18:18stimulus unconditional response
- 18:20this is a nice way to review it right
- 18:22that is fear conditioning it happens
- 18:23with humans too
- 18:25we form associations and we remember it
- 18:27lead to some traumatic events
- 18:29and that's going to trigger our response
- 18:31as well okay
- 18:32all right now the last function i'm not
- 18:35going to go too deep in this but it is
- 18:36important to note
- 18:37there's a lot of current research to
- 18:39show that your amygdala
- 18:41just doesn't deal with fear right in
- 18:43negative things
- 18:44but it actually could deal with positive
- 18:46emotions as well
- 18:48you might be thinking what positive
- 18:50emotions
- 18:52so there's a lot of current research to
- 18:54show that the amygdala
- 18:56is not just about fear it's about the
- 18:58intensity of the emotion
- 18:59in other words yes it does respond to
- 19:01fear but that's because it's a very
- 19:03intense emotion
- 19:04and we find is that your middle will
- 19:06also fire some action potentials
- 19:08if the emotion is very positive like
- 19:10something really good happened to you
- 19:12right you won an award you got a really
- 19:13good grade
- 19:14um you won the lottery or something
- 19:16really really big happened
- 19:18we find your amygdala is also going to
- 19:19respond to that as well
- 19:21so i'm not going to go to be too deep
- 19:22into it but it is important to know that
- 19:24there is research coming out
- 19:26that it does play a role in positive
- 19:28emotion so
- 19:29i guess the big takeaway is that the
- 19:30amygdala is not just about fear
- 19:32it's the intensity of emotions as well
- 19:35whether positive
- 19:36or whether they're negative
- 19:39all right guys i want to thank you for
- 19:40watching the psych explained video i
- 19:42really hope you took something away
- 19:43once again don't forget to like the
- 19:45video subscribe and leave your comments
- 19:47below
- 19:47until next time
About this transcript
This page contains the full transcript of The Fear Center of Your Brain (Amygdala Explained) by Psych Explained, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 3,846 words across 659 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.
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