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Which limbic structure's damage explains this deficit?
More, if you want it
What has changed for the patient?Tap a term: its definition, what you can do with it, and how often the exam asks it.
Definition: a memory of an emotionally charged event, which the amygdala helps store strongly.
You can: Name emotional memory when a patient recalls an emotionally charged event more strongly than a dull one.
Definition: no normal fear in danger after damage to both amygdalae.
You can: Tell an absent fear response from Kluver-Bucy syndrome by whether mouth, food and sexual changes also appear.
Definition: hyperorality, hypersexuality, placidity and hyperphagia after bilateral amygdala or medial temporal damage.
You can: Tell Kluver-Bucy syndrome from Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome by the damaged structure and the deficit.
Definition: profound anterograde amnesia with confabulation after mammillary body and dorsomedial thalamus damage.
You can: Tell Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome from Kluver-Bucy syndrome by amnesia with confabulation.
Each card is one term. The grey line is what the patient says, which is what the question stem gives.
Summary
Emotional memory is a memory of an emotionally charged event, which the amygdala helps consolidate.
Emotional memory is a memory of an emotionally charged event, which the helps consolidate. The amygdala processes emotionally salient, or emotionally charged, events first. Those events then stay in memory more strongly than calm events.
Basal amygdala nuclei form long-lasting traces for fear conditioning, so frightening events are stored strongly. After processing, the central nucleus sends output to motor, autonomic and neuroendocrine systems that express fear. One PTSD theory says emotionally charged information that the brain cannot fully process stays unprocessed and intrudes into awareness. Consolidation is the step that turns a new memory into a lasting one.
Priya attends a fracture clinic after a car crash. Priya says, "I can see the lorry hitting us, but I don't remember the drive before."
Candidates credit every memory gain to the hippocampus. A stronger memory for an emotional event comes from the amygdala.
5 more sections on Amygdala lesions: emotional memory, loss of fear, Kluver-Bucy and Wernicke-Korsakoff syndromes
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