Amygdala Responsible For Our Sense Of Personal Space

Here's a nice "social brain" story from Ralph Adolphs, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Caltech. Using a unique patient, SM, who has bilateral lesions to the amygdalae they have been able to establish that the amygdala alerts us to when people literally "get in our face". SM behaves totally inappropriately socially in that she can tolerate people approaching her practically nose to nose and does not observe reasonable social distance herself. She cannot interpret fear in faces and find trouble gauging other peoples' trustworthiness. She is just too friendly. Their findings may link to autism studies because autistics have problems with the concept of appropriate social distance and have to be taught what it is.