The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Role of the amygdala in emotion and non-verbal communication
Language	J
AuthorList	Hisao Nishijo, Etsuro Hori, Taketoshi Ono
Affiliation	Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Sugitani 2630, Toyama 930-0194, and CREST, JST, Japan
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 19 (3), 145-155, 2003
Received
Accepted
Abstract	Animals including humans are motivated to approach to rewarding objects such as food, water, and partners with the opposite sex (approaching behavior based on positive emotion), while they are motivated to avoid aversive objects such as natural enemies, and dangerous objects (flight or avoidance behavior based on negative emotion). The amygdala plays an important role in biological evaluation of the objects and in these emotional behaviors for the organisms to survive. In humans who have developed a highly sophisticated society, the amygdala has been suggested to be essential in social cognition such as recognition of emotional expression, social judgments, and theory of mind. In this article, a role of the primate amygdala in emotional expression and social cognition including non-verbal communication is reviewed.
Keywords	primates, amygdala, facial expression, emotion, social cognition