A Look at the Limbic System

The limbic system is often referred to as the emotional system and is the collection of structures that play a role in emotional behavior and regulates behavior. The limbic system, which is Greek for ring, surrounds the thalamus located directly under the cerebellum. The structures that make up the system that will be of main focus are the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. These structures, although unique, are cooperatively involved in many of our motivations and emotion, and are a major component of our memory as well. The hypothalamus is located just under the thalamus, and arguably, its most important function is linking the nervous system to the endocrine system. The hypothalamus acts as a relay to the rest of the body and directly outputs to the autonomic nervous system to quickly control our behaviors related to survival such as blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, digestion, sweating, and all the sympathetic and parasympathetic function (Isaacson 21). This structure is in charge of regulating the body in terms of hormone release, temperature, hunger or thirst, and sexual behavior. For the emotional system, the hypothalamus serves as the connection between cognitive and physiological responses. The information is sent out of the hypothalamus in two ways, first to the autonomic nervous system, and other route is via the pituitary gland. It is connected to the pituitary by both neural and chemical means, and the hormones involved are vitally important in regulating growth and metabolism. The hippocampus is located in the medial temporal lobe and is seen to be conserved across a range of mammals. This structure is vital for the formation of new declarative memories, and when damaged, the information will not be transferred from the short term

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memory into long term memory (Isaacson 46). Although patients with damage to the hippocampus can still form new implicit memories, there is an inability to form explicit memories and this damage results in anterograde amnesia. A prime example of such damage was seen in H.M. who was studied by Brenda Milner in 1957. H.M. suffered greatly from epilepsy, and as a result, had a bilateral medial temporal lobe lesion. Following surgery H.M. was welladjusted, with his sensory and motor intact and high intelligence; he still had his short term memory, and maintained a long term memory of two years prior to the surgery (Ogden). By studying his memory, Milner was able to conclude that the hippocampus was crucial in forming new explicit memory, but did not affect the memories that were already transferred to the long term memory nor did it affect the formation of implicit ones. Through an experiment such as the mirror drawing task, H.M. was able form new implicit memories, but still did not have any recollection of completing the task before. The task was to trace the outline of a shape through the reflection in a mirror, and he initially made many mistakes, but the task was trainable, and after much exposure over many days, he was able to learn the skill and trace the shapes much better than at the start of the experiment. In a fear conditioning study in rats, experimenters tested whether or not rats would have the ability to learn if they had a lesion to the hippocampus. The rats were placed in a cage where they would receive a shock through the floor while a tone played simultaneously as the shock. The rats would then later be brought back into the same cage and freeze, a reaction of fear, which implies that the rat remembered its surroundings. Then they were placed in the cage again, but the cage was altered in appearance and the rats did not react to the surroundings alone. As the rats explored, the tone would play, and the rats would freeze showing that they remembered the tone as well. To manipulate the memory, the hippocampi of sample rats were

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lesioned 1 day after training or 30 days after training. The rats that received the lesion 1 day previous failed to freeze when placed in the cage, but those that had received the lesion 30 days previous did freeze, while the lesion to the hippocampus didnt affect the freeze reaction to the tone in either group. This shows that the hippocampus is vitally crucial in forming new memories, but if given enough time, the memory will transfer to long term memory, which is strong evidence for the temporal gradient in human amnesia as well (Maren). The amygdala is Greek for almond, named for its almond-like shape, and is located on either side of the thalamus, and at the end of the hippocampus. The amygdala is in charge of emotional learning and responses such as fearful and aggressive behaviors. The amygdala applies an emotional association to memories and performs primary roles in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. Damage to the amygdala caused by Urbach-Wiethe Disease results in a deficit in expressing, recognizing and understanding emotions (Feinstein). Revisiting the fear conditioning experiment, the lesion to the hippocampus did not affect the reaction to the tone in either lesion group, but then the experimenters tried the same experiment with lesions to the amygdala. The lesion completely stopped the freezing response the rats had from the tone in both recent and remote lesions. This suggests that the amygdala was responsible for regulating the reaction of freezing that stemmed from the psychological fear of the shock. Without communication from the amygdala, the rats had no emotional memory of the tone, so it did not illicit the fearful reaction. These three main structures make up the limbic system which regulates the bodys response to emotion and memory.

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Works Cited

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Feinstein S. Justin; Buzza, Colin; Hurlemann. Fear and Panic in Humans with Bilateral Amygdala Damage. Nature Neuroscience (2012) DOI: 10.1038/nn.3323 Maren, Stephen; Gal, Aharonov; and Michael S. Fanselow. "Neurotoxic Lesions of the Dorsal Hippocampus and Pavlovian Fear Conditioning in Rats." Behavioural Brain Research 88.2 (1997): 261. Print. Isaacson, Robert L. The Limbic System. 2nd ed. New York: Plenum, 1982. Print. 21, 46. Jarrett, Christian. "BPS Research Digest: Extreme Fear Experienced without the Amygdala." BPS Research Digest. The British Psychology Society, n.d. Web. 3 Feb. 2013. Ogden, Jenni. Trouble in Mind. Psychology Today. n.d. Web. 16 Jan 2012