Quotes from Joseph LeDoux

Regardless of the reason why the nap works, it appears to be of practical value. Obviously, people in controlled environments

the amygdala itself is a recipient of neuromodulatory inputs means that its processing is also boosted during arousal. As the amygdala drives arousal and arousal in turn drives the amygdala, a self-sustaining reentrant loop is engaged that helps keep the brain and body revved up as long as the threat remains.75

Like all forms of learning,29 extinction requires the synthesis of proteins in neurons that are learning and storing the new information. In this case, protein synthesis is required in both the infralimbic cortex30 and the amygdala31 for the effects of extinction to persist as a long-term memory.

For example, a threatening stimulus—say, a snake at your feet on a path in the woods—will automatically elicit defensive responses that occur as a result of activation of a defensive survival circuit. This is an a-noetic state that does not have any necessary connection to conscious knowing or the self. However, the same stimulus that triggered the a-noetic state can, and likely will, also result in the retrieval of conscious noetic knowledge (semantic memory) about

The essence of who you are is stored as synaptic interactions in and between the various systems of your brain. As we learn more about the synaptic mechanisms of memory, we learn more about the neural basis of the self.

This has been used with some success in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, which results from the loss of neurons that make dopamine.116 Areas responsible for motor control depend on dopamine, and its absence leads to dysregulation of the associated circuits and results in tremors. In gene therapy for Parkinson's, genes are attached to viruses that are injected into the motor control regions of the basal ganglia and carry the new genes into neurons. The

The therapy thus starts by identifying negative appraisals, memories, trigger stimuli, and cognitive and behavioral factors that preserve symptoms. Then the therapist helps the client modify the excessive negative appraisals, elaborate the memories, discriminate triggers that lead to reexperiencing them, and eliminate cognitive and behavioral avoidance.

For one thing, people tend to remember how they felt at the end of an emotional episode rather than how they felt about the whole episode.

The window during which a memory could be disrupted was four to six hours from the time it was acquired; after that, it became stable and persistent. This led to the standard view that a memory is stored once; then each time some stimulus appears that is relevant to it, the original memory is activated and expressed.

For example, the easiest way to identify which emotion you are feeling is to label it verbally as fear, anger, love, or disgust. Some even insist that you don't really know what you are feeling until you have labeled it.

This in no way implies the existence of multiple executives, each with their own planning and decision-making capacities. Instead, it suggests that the various component executive functions are achieved by a set of interconnected circuits that are spread over several brain regions in the frontal cortex, and even other regions,