Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The amygdala accountant: new tricks for an old structure

Nature Neuroscience volume 18, pages 324–325 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

What drives us to pursue distant, more valuable goals over more proximate, lesser ones? Counter to what you might expect, this type of advanced goal-directed planning and foresight in primates may involve the amygdala. In a reward savings task, neurons in the amygdala track the length and subjective value of internally generated plans.

Imagine you've just received your first paycheck and with it comes a heady rush of freedom. In this situation, you might immediately go out on Saturday morning and spend it on a cheap car to cement your independence. If, however, you're a tad savvier with your money, you might stow it away securely in the bank with a plan to save up for a nicer, more dependable car, so as not to impulsively squander your money on a banger. What compels some of us to have the foresight to save for the future? What motivates each of us to save or spend on any given Saturday? A great deal is understood about saving and spending patterns from the fields of psychology and economics, but much less is known about its neural mechanisms.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Neurons in the monkey amygdala track internally generated investment plans.

Katie Vicari/Nature Publishing Group

References

  1. Hernádi, I., Grabenhorst, F. & Schultz, W. Nat. Neurosci. 18, 461–469 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Sanghera, M.K., Rolls, E.T. & Roper-Hall, A. Exp. Neurol. 63, 610–626 (1979).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Grabenhorst, F., Hernádi, I. & Schultz, W. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 109, 18950–18955 (2012).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Paton, J.J., Belova, M.A., Morrison, S.E. & Salzman, C.D. Nature 439, 865–870 (2006).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Pine, A., Shiner, T., Seymour, B. & Dolan, R.J. J. Neurosci. 30, 8888–8896 (2010).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. LeDoux, J. Cell. Mol. Neurobiol. 23, 727–738 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Martínez-García, F., Martínez-Marcos, A. & Lanuza, E. Brain Res. Bull. 57, 463–469 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Mosher, C.P., Zimmerman, P.E. & Gothard, K.M. J. Neurosci. 30, 16197–16207 (2010).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Zhang, W. et al. J. Neurosci. 33, 722–733 (2013).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Rudebeck, P.H., Walton, M.E., Smyth, A.N., Bannerman, D.M. & Rushworth, M.F.S. Nat. Neurosci. 9, 1161–1168 (2006).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Kennerley, S.W., Dahmubed, A.F., Lara, A.H. & Wallis, J.D. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 21, 1162–1178 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Hayden, B.Y., Pearson, J.M. & Platt, M.L. Nat. Neurosci. 14, 933–939 (2011).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Rudebeck, P.H., Mitz, A.R., Chacko, R.V. & Murray, E.A. Neuron 80, 1519–1531 (2013).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Price, J.L. & Drevets, W.C. Trends Cogn. Sci. 16, 61–71 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clayton P. Mosher and Peter H. Rudebeck are at the Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.,

    Clayton P Mosher & Peter H Rudebeck

Authors
  1. Clayton P Mosher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Peter H Rudebeck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Clayton P Mosher or Peter H Rudebeck.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mosher, C., Rudebeck, P. The amygdala accountant: new tricks for an old structure. Nat Neurosci 18, 324–325 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3949

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3949

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing