Your Complicated Amygdala: Why Brain-Imaging Work Is Misleading
March 14, 2012
The Atlantic:
Brain-imaging studies have been painting an overly-simplistic picture of the how the brain works. It has even filtered into TV programming. In one episode of a popular legal drama, a character claimed to have figured out that a policeman was racist because his amygdala activated whenever he was shown pictures of black people, demonstrating his fear of them.
This simplified picture troubles many cognitive researchers, including Dr. William A. Cunningham of Ohio State University. It’s true that the amygdala becomes increasingly active when people are afraid, but that’s far from the whole story. The amygdala plays a much broader role in the brain’s functioning than merely responding to fear.
Read the whole story: The Atlantic
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