ABSTRACT
Damage to the amygdala is associated with impairments in stimulus-reward learning (Gaffan & Harrison, 1987; Gaffan, Gaffan, & Harrison, 1988; Spiegler & Mishkin, 1981). The idea that the amygdala might serve a general role in associating neutral stimuli with an affective valence has been invoked to explain the bizarre effects of temporal lobe damage that includes the amygdala on emotional behaviour in primates, including the Klüver-Bucy syndrome (Brown & Schäfer, 1888; Iwai, Nishio, & Yamaguchi, 1986; Klüver & Bucy, 1938, 1939; Mishkin & Aggleton, 1981). Of course, most studies of stimulus-reward learning in amygdalectomised monkeys were based on amygdala lesions that would have damaged fibres of passage en route through or nearby the amygdala, the overlying temporal cortex, or both (reviewed by Baxter & Murray, 2000).
