Cited by 1,062Memory and Neural MechanismsNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

The human amygdala and the emotional evaluation of sensory stimuli

Zald, David H.·2003·Brain Research Reviews

Abstract

A wealth of animal data implicates the amygdala in aspects of emotional processing. In recent years, functional neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies have begun to refine our understanding of the functions of the amygdala in humans. This literature offers insights into the types of stimuli that engage the amygdala and the functional consequences that result from this engagement. Specific conclusions and hypotheses include: (1) the amygdala activates during exposure to aversive stimuli from multiple sensory modalities; (2) the amygdala responds to positively valenced stimuli, but these responses are less consistent than those induced by aversive stimuli; (3) amygdala responses are modulated by the arousal level, hedonic strength or current motivational value of stimuli; (4) amygdala responses are subject to rapid habituation; (5) the temporal characteristics of amygdala responses vary across stimulus categories and subject populations; (6) emotionally valenced stimuli need not reach conscious awareness to engage amygdala processing; (7) conscious hedonic appraisals do not require amygdala activation; (8) activation of the amygdala is associated with modulation of motor readiness, autonomic functions, and cognitive processes including attention and memory; (9) amygdala activations do not conform to traditional models of the lateralization of emotion; and (10) the extent and laterality of amygdala activations are related to factors including psychiatric status, gender and personality. The strengths and weakness of these hypotheses and conclusions are discussed with reference to the animal literature.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/s0165-0173(02)00248-5

Cites

335 of 335 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Fear consistently activates the human amygdala.

    “fear consistently activates the human amygdala”
  • Amygdala activation does not imply that a person is experiencing fear, because other affective and non-affective states have also been reported to produce amygdala activation.

    “this does not imply that people who show amygdala activation must be experiencing fear, because other affective and non-affective states have also been reported to produce amygdala activation4,18.”
  • In healthy people, threat-related social signals such as fearful and angry faces increase amygdala activity.

    “In normal individuals, exposure to threat-related social signals such as fearful and angry facial expressions increases amygdala activity (Whalen et al. 1998; Zald, 2003); this effect is heightened in individuals with social anxiety (Phan et al. 2006).”
  • The amygdala is especially important in socioemotional processing, particularly for threat-related social information.

    “show the amygdala to be particularly important in socioemotional processing, especially processing of threat-related social information (Whalen et al. 1998; Zald 2003).”
  • The amygdala also supports stimulus-reinforcement learning for positive stimuli.

    “But the amygdala also supports stimulus-reinforcement learning as it relates to positive stimuli.16–18”

    From Neural Substrates of Childhood Anxiety Disorders (2012) · cites this paper as [18]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Zald, D. H.
Affiliations
Vanderbilt University (US)
Corresponding author
Zald, David H.
Venue
Brain Research Reviews
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2003-01
Volume
41
Issue
1
Pages
88-123
ISSN
0165-0173 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2154734566
Cited by
1,062
References
335
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 43 · 2016: 51 · 2015: 50 · 2014: 59 · 2013: 54 · 2012: 56
FWCI
6.79
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Brain Research Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (F32MH011641, 1F32MH11641-01A1)
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (T32-DA-07097, T32DA007097)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
Keywords
amygdala, affective evaluation, sensory stimuli, aversive stimuli, positive valence, arousal, hedonic value, habituation, conscious awareness, emotional memory, attention, gender differences, personality, mental health status, autonomic regulation, motor readiness
MeSH terms
Amygdala, Arousal, Cognition, Emotions, Fear, Female, Humans, Functional Laterality, Male, Perception, Radionuclide Imaging, Sensation, Sexuality

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review