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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Investigating the Neural Mechanisms of Aware and Unaware Fear Memory with fMRI
Published on: October 6, 2011
Cross-modal associations and the human amygdala
Abstract:
The role of the human amygdala in cross-modal associations was investigated in two subjects: SM-046, who had bilateral damage circumscribed to the amygdala; and the patient known as Boswell, whose damage in both temporal lobes includes the amygdala and surrounding cortices. Neither subject was impaired on Tactile-Visual or Visual-Tactile cross-modal tasks using the Arc-Circle test, suggesting that the amygdala is not involved in cross-modal associations involving perceptually "equivalent" basic stimulus properties. On the other hand, the results are compatible with the amygdala's involvement in higher-order associations between exteroceptive sensory data and interoceptive data concerned with correlated somatic states.
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