A Flip Flop Amygdala Activation Model in Psychopathy

A new paper looks at evidence (data from both human and animal studies) for amygdala dysfunction in psychopathy with regards to “deficit in fear-recognition, lower conditioned fear responses and poor performance in passive avoidance, and response-reversal learning tasks…in order to provide:

 A model of differential amygdala activation in which the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is underactive while the activity of the central amygdala (CeA) is of average to above average levels is proposed to provide a more accurate and up-to-date account for the specific cognitive and emotional deficits found in psychopathy. In addition, the model provides a mechanism by which attentional-based models and emotion-based models of psychopathy can coexist.  [via, img]

Important because a unified amygdala function has been indefensible given the complex array of subserving nuclei -the basolateral nucleus being the primary source of cortical sensory input and the central nucleus being the main source of output/control centers.