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Personal Space Regulation by the Human Amygdala

Overview
Journal Nat Neurosci
Date 2009 Sep 1
PMID 19718035
Citations 150
Authors
Daniel P Kennedy
Jan Glascher
J Michael Tyszka
Ralph Adolphs
Affiliations
Soon will be listed here.
Abstract

The amygdala plays key roles in emotion and social cognition, but how this translates to face-to-face interactions involving real people remains unknown. We found that an individual with complete amygdala lesions lacked any sense of personal space. Furthermore, healthy individuals showed amygdala activation upon close personal proximity. The amygdala may be required to trigger the strong emotional reactions normally following personal space violations, thus regulating interpersonal distance in humans.

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