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''amygdala'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260605232103-00-⌔

amygdala - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

amygdala (plural amygdalas or amygdalae)

  • (neuroanatomy) Each one of the two regions of the brain, located as a pair in the medial temporal lobe, believed to play a key role in processing emotions, such as fear and pleasure, in both animals and humans.
    • ✤ There is experimental evidence showing that cortisol restrains the intensity and duration of the emergency reaction to stress, and catecholamines have been shown to enhance emotional memory in the amygdala (see subsection on “Noradrenaline”). Thus, individuals lacking cortisol would overstore traumatic memories.1
    • ✤ Cognitive scientists distinguish between normal risk-assessment decisions, which activate the reward-prediction regions of the brain, and decisions made amid extreme uncertainty, which generate activity in the amygdala.2
    • ✤ In the study, led by Ryota Kanai of the University College London, people who identified themselves as liberals generally had a larger anterior cingulate cortex — a comma-shaped region near the front of the brain that is involved in decision-making. By contrast, those who identified as conservatives had larger amygdalas — almond-shaped structures that are linked with emotional learning and the processing of fear.3
    • ✤ A decreased amygdala response, in other words, may help explain the “slippery slope” of lying, said Sharot, one of the authors of “The Human Brain Adapts to Dishonesty,” just published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.4

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin amygdala (“almond, amygdala”), from Ancient Greek ἀμυγδάλη (amugdálē, “almond”), named as such due to its shape. Doublet of almond, amygdale, and mandorla.

Pronunciation

  • (UK, US) IPA: /əˈmɪɡ.də.lə/
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 2006, Marcus Lira Brandão, Frederico Guilherme Graeff, Neurobiology of Mental Disorders, page 36: ↩

  2. 2009 February 12, David Brooks, “The Worst-Case Scenario”, in The New York Times ‎, archived from the original on 9 November 2020: ↩

  3. 2011 April 8, Amie Ninh, “Liberal vs. Conservative: Does the Difference Lie in the Brain?”, in TIME ‎, archived from the original on 18 July 2025: ↩

  4. 2017 March 21, Jessica Ravitz, “Lying may be your brain’s fault, honestly”, in CNN ‎: ↩

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