Emotional memories are thought to be stored in synapses throughout the brain. Fear memories, for example, are considered to be stored in the neuronal connections from the lateral nuclei to the central nucleus of the amygdalae and the bed nuclei of the stria terminalis (part of the extended amygdala). Of course, these connections are not the sole site of fear memories given that the nuclei of the amygdala receive and send information to other brain regions that are important for memory such as the hippocampus. Some sensory neurons project their axon terminals to the central nucleus. The central nuclei are involved in the genesis of many fear responses such as defensive behavior (freezing or escape responses), autonomic nervous system responses (changes in blood pressure and heart rate / tachycardia), neuroendocrine responses (stress - hormone release), etc. Damage to the amygdalae impairs both the acquisition and expression of Pavlovian fear conditioning, a form of classical conditioning of emotional responses.
what part of the brain plays an important role in emotional conditioning
amygdalae amygdalae