Area of brain found to play key role in initiating memo...( g and another followed in five seconds ...),Health

g and another followed in five seconds by a mild shock to the feet. Rabbits that correctly learned the consequences could avoid the shock by moving the wheel under their feet. Those with blocked amygdalas failed to learn such a response to the shock-predicting tone.

In a follow-up study to appear later in the same journal, the researchers blocked the auditory cortex, through which return signals travel from the amygdala to the medial geniculate. Again, rabbits failed to differentiate the tones.

Instead of just getting input from the medial geniculate, Gabriel said, the amygdala appears to send signals back to the medial geniculate, allowing neurons to decipher the significance of the sounds. This work puts the amygdala in the middle of the circuitry, in a very prominent position in terms of relevance toward learning, Gabriel said. The findings, he added, also are consistent with a theory originally formulated by James L. McGaugh of the University of California at Irvine. The new data, however, show how the theory is implemented in terms of the activity in the brain circuitry.

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Contact: Jim Barlow
b-james3@uiuc.edu
217-333-5802
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1-Feb-2001

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