Advanced search×  Neonatal amygdala or hippocampus lesions
influence responsiveness to objects.  Developmental
Psychobiology 52(5):487 (2010) PMID 20583145  Medial temporal
lobe brain structures, such as the amygdala, play an important
role in the normal perception and generation of emotional
behavior. Little research, however, has assessed the role of
such structures across the neurodevelopmental trajectory. We
assessed emotional behavioral responses of rhesus macaques that
received bilateral ibotenic acid lesions of the amygdala or
hippocampus at 2 weeks of age and sham-operated controls. At 9
and 18 months of age, animals interacted with novel objects that
varied in visual complexity as a means of varying emotional
salience. All animals behaved differently in the presence of
visually simple, as compared to complex, objects, suggesting
that they were sensitive to variation in emotional salience.
Across both experiments, amygdala-lesioned animals appeared to
be less behaviorally inhibited insofar as they exp