The Region that Manages the Emotional Responses: “AMYGDALA”

Our Almighty Lord created the human soul in various ways. Every
person has different tastes, different social relationships. Allah,
the sole owner of knowledge, created a special region 'amygdala'
in the brain, as a means to manage the emotions the human soul
feels.
The 'amygdala' region in our brains is responsible for the feelings
of fear, safety and building social relationships. It is an almond
shaped nuclei underneath the limbic circuit on the brain stem and
consists of interlinked structures. It has two lobes; right and
left. This region helps us catch the sensory signals around us and
help determine how to react to what and when.
The Amygdala in our Brain is the Source of Emotional Responses
Our Almighty Lord created us in such a way that 80% of the
information our brains get from the outside world comes through the
eyes. The lens focuses the image on the retina, and after it is
converted to electric impulses, it is sent to the brain through
optic nerves in a split second, which is one thousandth of a second
to be exact. The impulses coming from both eyes carry data as to
the features of the object one looks at. The brain then joins
together the two impulses from two eyes to make a single image. It
determines the shape, color and distance of the object. In other
words, it is not the eye that sees the objects but the brain itself.
The electric impulses sent by the eyes go to the primary visual
cortex at the back of the brain. This center is 2.5 mm thick and a
couple of centimeters wide. It has six layers of neurons which is
around one hundred million neurons (nerve cells). The impulses
first go to the fourth layer and after they are analyzed there,
they are sent to other layers. In this center, each neuron receives
impulses from thousands of neurons and sends back impulses to
thousands of other neurons.
The retina sends the electric impulses to the thalamus region of our
brain, while the brain determines the reaction to be given the
image. If the reaction is an emotional one, the amgydala, the
source of the emotion repertoire, will be consulted. If the data
coming from the retina has a high potential (shocking situations),
then some of the impulses sent to the thalamus will be channeled
directly to the amygdala and this triggers an emotional response.
The visual cortex no longer has any opportunity to figure out
what's going on and the only thing the cortex can do after that is
build the reactions dictated by the amygdala.
Man, with the soul he possesses, enjoys feelings like honor, love,
respect, friendship and honesty. Just like a cell on the tip of our
finger cannot have any feelings such as happiness or grief, the
neurons in the brain do not have such metaphysical talents either.
This is an obvious truth anyone could easily see even without any
scientific evidence. Our Almighty Lord said the following about the
soul in a Qur'anic verse:
"They will ask you about the Soul. Say: 'The Soul is my Lord's
concern. You have only been given a little knowledge.'." (Al-Isra',
85)
Can the source of individual behavior be the amgydala region in the
brain? Scientific research shows that the amygdala region in the
brain is responsible for individual behavior. When we are exposed to
a danger, the brain is bombarded with questions like, " Is this
something I hate? Will it hurt me? Is it something I'm scared of?'
and if the answer is yes, the amygdala reacts in the form of an
alarm which alerts the rest of the brain that there is a crisis.
The amgydala has a rich communication network with the rest of the
brain. In emergencies, it controls and guides a big part of the
brain. The elements in the limbic system are the experts of the
learning and remembering processes, while the amygdala is the
expert of emotional states.
It is a known fact that our emotional responses are managed by the
amygdala, but its functions are yet to be fully discovered.
Scientists are still trying to find answers to the following
questions:
- How does the brain differentiate between emotional situations and
know that it needs to send those impulses to the amgydala?
- Although the amygdala is mostly the same in all human beings, why
do people differ in the risks they take, in the things they fear or
in terms of their social preferences?
The scientists think that these differences have got to with a gene
called "Neurod2". Experiments with guinea pigs showed that when the
presence of this gene in the amygdala region is reduced, the
subjects experienced reduced feelings of fear and started taking
bigger risks. Humans also have this gene, but there are still some
questions that need to be answered.
Could the genes be the ones deciding if we will take risks or not,
or how many friends we will have or the hobbies we enjoy? In other
words, could it be that a small lump of flesh in our brains
determines our character and emotional choices? Surely, the answer
is no.
Then what really determines our emotions?
What would happen if we didn't have an Amygdala?
A young person who had his amygdala removed saw a big change in his
life because he is almost now emotionally blind.
Previously, he was an extroverted person, a very social type that
had many friends; now he is indifferent to his friends and
doesn't even recognize his own parents and chooses to live alone.
All his emotions were replaced by silence and indifference.
The source of our Individual Behavior is not the Amygdala, but the Soul
Our senses are built through electric impulses. Then is it the
brain and the amygdala that interprets all these impulses and turns
them into a friend, a beautiful flower, a breathtaking scenery, our
parents, or kids playing in the street?
Technically, it is true that the impulses are interpreted in the
brain. Materialists claim that we are nothing but the neurons in a
brain and that the world we live in is the result of the interaction
of the neurons. They claim that the entity that can think, laugh, be
happy, recognize others, is nothing more than a bundle of neurons,
in the words of the materialist, evolutionist physicist Francis
Crick, who discovered DNA. ( http://www.bbc.co.uk /radio4/reith2003
/lecture1.shtml) It's not important for a materialist how a person
thinks and how he makes something out of perceptions. Finding
answers to those questions is not important for the materialists,
because they have no explanation for them. For example, they want
to think of everything in terms of materialistic concepts. However,
that's a lie to keep people away from faith in Allah. It's not the
brain that creates the consciousness, it is the soul. The thing
that says ' I see the image inside the brain, or I hear the sounds
inside the brain' is the soul that Allah gives us. The materialist
state of mind, however, does not want this truth to come out. This
is the main reason behind the lie of the materialists: ' The mystery
of consciousness cannot be solved '. The existence of the soul, the
fact that Allah gives the soul to humans, destroys their
materialistic views and lies. No matter how much they try to avoid
the subject by using the word 'inexplicable', it is an open and
clear truth, that the reality of man - in other words, the thing
that can say 'I am me' - is the soul. Allah says in the Qur'an that
He first created the body of man and then ' breathed His Soul into
him' .
" When your Lord said to the angels, 'I am creating a human being
out of dried clay formed from fetid black mud. When I have formed
him and breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration in
front of him!'" (Surat-Al-Hijr, 28 - 29)
One of the causes of autism is that there are less nerve cells in
the amygdala
The almond-shaped amygdala in the depths of the brain is an area
that helps us understand other people's feelings. The latest research
suggests that this region plays an important role in the feelings of
fear prevalent in autism. However, researchers also think that
this region is connected to various mental states.
For example, autistic people tend to shy away from social
relationships and fail to understand others' feelings. Research
has shown that people suffering from autism had less nerve cells
in their amygdala than normal people have. However, it is surely not
possible that a structure made up of fat, water and protein builds
the consciousness of a person, and makes him a thinking, loving,
reacting, fearing, rejoicing being. It is only the soul that can see
without an eye, that can hear without an ear, that can think without
a brain.