How to Use amygdala in a Sentence

amygdala

noun
  • The amygdala, the seat of fear, enlarges.
    — Big Think, 1 May 2026
  • The fear response starts in a region of the brain called the amygdala.
    — Arash Javanbakht and Linda Saab, Smithsonian, 28 Oct. 2017
  • Your amygdala — your lizard brain — takes over on social media.
    — Jacob Calvin Meyer, baltimoresun.com, 9 Sep. 2020
  • The amygdala is a portion of the brain that helps process fear and potential threats.
    — Paul Hsieh, Forbes, 30 Oct. 2024
  • The results center on the ancient brain area called the amygdala.
    — Steven Poole, WSJ, 17 Oct. 2017
  • This includes a region called the amygdala that’s been dubbed the home of fear or emotion.
    — Lisa Feldman Barrett, Scientific American, 8 Aug. 2024
  • And the amygdala — the threat detector toward the base of our brains — fires.
    — Rachel Carlson, NPR, 20 Nov. 2024
  • But around three seconds in, your amygdala starts paging for backup.
    — Mac Schwerin, New York Times, 27 June 2023
  • Your brain has a threat detection center called the amygdala.
    — Sahar Andrade, Forbes.com, 26 Feb. 2026
  • In moments of conflict, the amygdala — the brain’s alarm system — goes on high alert.
    — Mark Travers, Forbes.com, 14 July 2025
  • For years, the amygdala was thought of as the brain’s fear center, wired mainly to detect threats.
    — Mark Travers, Forbes.com, 19 Aug. 2025
  • The brain's amygdala acts as a kind of alarm system for the brain that can hijack it while looking for threats.
    — Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY, 1 May 2017
  • This activates the amygdala, a little ball of nerves in the brain that detects fear.
    — Anna Brooks, Popular Science, 30 Dec. 2020
  • This will help calm your amygdala and could give you a quick boost of feel-good endorphins, says Pittman.
    — Jenny McCoy, Glamour, 3 June 2020
  • Throughout, the brain’s amygdala stars as the central player.
    — Hara Estroff Marano, New York Times, 12 Jan. 2018
  • To say that my serotonin levels are doing fab and that my amygdala is firing on all cylinders.
    — Claire Fitzsimmons, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • At the base of our brains, within the limbic system, is a primitive part called the amygdala.
    — Roberta Moore, Forbes, 5 Oct. 2021
  • Here is the emotion-processing amygdala, with its telltale bumps.
    — Amina Khan Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 5 Nov. 2021
  • And studies have shown that a part of your brain that's called the amygdala changes its activity pattern.
    — Eileen Finan, Peoplemag, 10 Mar. 2024
  • That’s because our brains are home to the amygdala, which acts like an internal smoke detector.
    — Laura Kiniry, Popular Science, 17 June 2026
  • While our frontal cortex wants to think about where the lions may be tomorrow night, our amygdalas are in overdrive.
    — National Geographic, 17 Mar. 2020
  • The amygdala and hippocampus, two clumps of gray matter that help govern our moods and emotions, shrink as well.
    — Rene Chun, Los Angeles Magazine, 19 June 2017
  • One study found that naming negative emotions calmed down the amygdala, the part of the brain where feelings light up.
    — Time, 28 Oct. 2021
  • When the brain perceives threat or stress, a small structure called the amygdala activates the body’s alarm system.
    — Rabbi Bruce D. Forman, Sun Sentinel, 25 Mar. 2026
  • The scans also showed that the amygdala (involved in anxiety, fear, and stress) got smaller.
    — Katelyn Beaty, The Atlantic, 6 Oct. 2017
  • Teens process information with the amygdala, and this is the emotional part.
    — Fox News, 19 Apr. 2018
  • The amygdala is the reflexive part of your brain that responds to danger and potential risks.
    — Ben Carlson, Fortune, 7 Mar. 2020
  • Questions about the desirability of an amygdala-free life can be found in many places online.
    — Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 7 Oct. 2018
  • The hippocampus is near and tightly connected to the amygdala.
    — Arash Javanbakht, Discover Magazine, 7 Sep. 2023
  • But sit next to that person in a sports stadium, chanting in unison in support of the same team, and your amygdala stays asleep.
    — Robert Sapolsky, Foreign Affairs, 12 Feb. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'amygdala.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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