We have seen that the region of our brain known as the amygdala orchestrates emotion and that it communicates with the hypothalamus, the region that houses the nerve cells that control instinctive behavior such as parenting, feeding, mating, fear, and fighting {chapter 3, fig. 3.5}. Anderson found a nucleus, or cluster of neurons, within the hypothalamus that contains two distinct populations of neurons: one that regulates aggression and one that regulates mating {fig. 7.8}. About 20 percent of the neurons located on the border between the two populations can be active during either mating or aggression. This suggests that the brain circuits regulating these two behaviors are intimately linked.
( Eric R. Kandel )
[ Reductionism in Art and Brain ]
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