The Incredible Nervous System: The Limbic

System
Friday, October 2, 2020 11:00 PM

Limbic Sytem
– Earliest layer of the forebrain to develop
– Oldest part of the forebrain
– Primary role in emotions and memories

○ THALAMUS
– "inner chamber" or "bridal bed"
– Football-shaped
– Main processing center for sensory information
– Efficient relay center
– Various information from different senses gathered or combined
– Senses first past through thalamus before it ascend to cerebral
cortex

○ OLFACTORY BULBS
– Sense of smell does not pass through thalamus

A. Olfactory Bulb
B. Olfactory Tract

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○ HYPOTHALAMUS
– Located below thalamus
– Above pituitary gland
– Plays a role in regulation of eating, emotions, sleeping, body,
temperature and sexual behaviors like lust
– 4F's: Fleeing, Fighting, Feeding, Fornication
– The hypothalamus was observed to kick start a variety of
behavior. For example in male and female rats, when their
hypothalamus was stimulated, they exhibited hypersexuality or
elevated sexual behavior. While eating behavior was effected to
other rats who had damaged hypothalamus.

○ HIPPOCAMPUS
– Sea horse shaped structure in the brain
– Located in temporal lobe
– Plays vital role in memory
– People with Alzheimer's Disease have smaller hippocampus and
lower levels of acetylcholine

> Sleep and Memory Consolidation

– Sleep Reactivates recent experiences stored in
hippocampus (short term) and shifts them to long term or
permanent memory somewhere in the cortex

> The Case of Henry Molaison

→ Henry Molaison or better known as HM is epileptic and
experiences daily epileptic seizures. While the surgeons
of HM found cases where it was claimed that
hippocampus damage reduced the frequency of
epileptic seizure in a patient. When they removed HM's
hippocampus, the occurrence of epileptic seizure
greatly lessened. However, he experienced severe
problems in memory. Due to the reason that
hippocampus is highly associated with short term
memory. Thus, he had a severe anterograde amnesia.

– Damage in hippocampus may result to amnesia.

> Anterograde Amnesia

– Inability to form new memories
– Difficulty learning new information
– More severe than retrograde amnesia

> Retrograde Amnesia

– Difficulty retrieving old memories

○ AMYGDALA
– Located in temporal lobe
– Near the hippocampus
– "Amygdale" in Greek means almond
– Strongly related to fear, aggression, and defensive behaviors
– Processes danger, threats and fearful information

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 – Processes danger, threats and fearful information
– Responsible in recognition of emotions in face
– Provides quick pathway to the cortex, a shortcut, as we have to
react quickly
– Fear is an evolutionary response
– Primitive pathway to act immediately in face of danger
– From amygdala to cortex
– Damage in Amygdala impairs the processing of certain emotion
expressions

> Heinrich Klüver and Paul Bucy

– They surgically removed the amygdala of the rhesus
monkey
Usually, rhesus monkey are ill-tempered. Thus, when they
removed its amygdala, it turned mild manner.

> Fearless Woman

– SM, a woman who had genetic condition in which her
brain calcifies or hardens that eventually led to the
destruction of her amygdala. They observed no fear in
SM. She cannot also recognize or detect fear in other
people.

– People who have damage in amygdala have reduced arousal to

fear, and anger arousing stimuli
– Damage in amygdala also decreases aggressive response and
fear
– While stimulation in amygdala increases aggressive or defensive
response and fear
– Amygdala is much more responsive to faces than FFA; this is due
to our evolutionary changes,
– People with Anti-Social Personality Disorder have smaller
amygdala than most individuals
– People with depression and or anxiety have overactive
amygdala. They normalize it by taking anti-depressant
People who are involved in political issues have stronger
amygdala response while apolitical people have weaker
amygdala response

Limbic system vs frontal lobe

– Researchers found that our larger and evolutionarily newer frontal
lobe, which is involved in thinking, deciding, and planning, plays a
critical role in controlling the limbic system’s powerful urges
– Hence, we could say that frontal lobe is more rational while our limbic
system is emotional

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