The amygdala is the reason we are afraid of things outside our control. Scientific studies of the amygdala have led to the discovery of the location of neurons in the amygdala that are responsible for fear conditioning. The amygdala is a section of the brain that is responsible for detecting fear and preparing for emergency events. The amygdala plays a key role in the modulation of memory consolidation.Following any learning event, the long-term memory for the event is not instantaneously formed. The amygdala is an important part of the limbic system. Amygdala hijack happens when your brain reacts to psychological stress as if it's physical danger and triggers your fight-or-flight response. The amygdala is involved in autonomic responses associated with fear and hormonal secretions. Have you ever been blindsided by emotion? Jordan Wonders, “What does your amygdala do for you” Thanks for WONDERing with us, Jordan! Fear conditioning is an associative learning process by which we learn through repeated experiences to fear something. Fear. Rather, information regarding the event is slowly put into long-term storage over time, a process referred to as "memory consolidation", until it reaches a relatively permanent state. Amygdala Structure. How does the Amygdala Magnify Grief? When life deals you a severe blow, it is but natural to feel sadness and to dwell on the images of “what might have been.” All such images trigger evasive action by the amygdala, which desperately seeks an impossible escape from the sense of loss. Research to date into the amygdala shows that it has an integrative role in behavioural, vegetative and endocrine activities of animals in their relation with their environment. Although we often refer to it in the singular, there are two amygdalae—one in each cerebral hemisphere.. What is the amygdala and what does it do? Grief is a social emotion, which triggers pain. But that does not make the amygdala the “fear centre”, because the amygdala also has connections coming in from and going out to several other parts of the brain, all of which also are needed to manifest fear. When you think of the amygdala, you should think of one word. The amygdala is not a "fear" center out of which effuses the feeling of being afraid. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you feel like crying. The amygdala is a collection of nuclei found deep within the temporal lobe.The term amygdala comes from Latin and translates to "almond," because one of the most prominent nuclei of the amygdala has an almond-like shape. You're walking along, minding your own business, when you hear a brief snippet of a song from long ago. You probably know that the sympathetic nervous system is part of a “fight or flight” mechanism when you are faced with a threat, for example if a mugger pulls out a knife and demands your phone. It also controls the way we react to certain stimuli, or an event that causes an emotion, that we see as potentially threatening or dangerous.