Living without an Amygdala

David G. Amaral, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Research Director of the UC Davis MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis. His interests include the neurobiology of social behavior and the development, neuroanatomical organization, and plasticity of the primate and human amygdala and hippocampal formation, with a particular focus on understanding the biological bases of autism spectrum disorder. Dr. Amaral is Director of Autism BrainNet, which solicits postmortem brain tissue to facilitate autism research, and Editor-in-Chief of Autism Research. He is a past president of the International Society for Autism Research and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among other honors.

Ralph Adolphs, PhD, is Bren Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology. He leads a social neuroscience laboratory that investigates the psychological and neurobiological underpinnings of social behavior, with a particular focus on the role of the human amygdala and prefrontal cortex. A major goal is to make comparisons and contrasts across different clinical populations and research techniques. Dr. Adolphs is a past president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and a recipient of the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, among other honors.