The Amygdala: Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory, and Mental Dysfunction

on the back shelves of medical school libraries. During a critical period of time, however, there is an urgent need for the information contained in this book. I, and others interested in getting the latest update of a rapidly changing field, might do well to push our local libraries to obtain this handy and informative volume. Both William James and Sigmund Freud believed in their time that the neural basis of emotion and memory is a most compelling but elusive area of study. Despite the great advances made in the neurosciences in the last decade, the study of psychobiology is still an unsettled frontier. A wealth of new techniques have, however, finally opened this fundamental area of research to experimental analysis. John Aggleton, of the University of Durham, has assembled a formidable group of clinical and laboratory investigators to present the latest and most exciting findings in the field of psychobiology in The Amygdala: Neurobiological Aspects of Emotion, Memory, and Mental Dysfunction. The amygdala complex, a mass of gray matter located in the medial part of the temporal lobe, is a critical structure in the generation of emotion and memory. Despite abundant evidence implicating the amygdala in affect and memory formation , stress responsivity, epilepsy, senile dementia, schizophrenia, pathologic aggression , and even stomach ulceration, it has been a decade since a book devoted to the subject has been published. But it has been worth the wait. Dr. Aggleton's The Amygdala is an authoritative and comprehensive volume, which is essential reading for anyone, whether expert or newcomer, who is interested in emotion and memory. The name of this subcortical structure (from the Latin for almond, a somewhat obscure reference to this structure's anatomical appearance) may be less familiar than its better studied cortical cousin, the hippocampus. Nevertheless, both brain areas have been considered allied structures since the time of Pierre Paul Broca, who included both in his le grand lobe limbique over a century ago (and indeed, modern neuroanatomical techniques have revealed abundant connections between the amyg-dala and the hippocampus). In 1952, Paul MacLean, then at Yale University, reintroduced Broca's term "limbic" for those structures which form an annular ring of tissue on the medial aspect of the cerebral hemispheres. MacLean elaborated on the Papez theory of 1937 that these limbic structures are involved in the generation of emotion. But how do the amygdala and other limbic structures give rise …