Progress in neurobiology
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Progress in neurobiology · Feb 2005
ReviewA review of systems and networks of the limbic forebrain/limbic midbrain.
Evolutionarily older brain systems, such as the limbic system, appear to serve fundamental aspects of emotional processing and provide relevant and motivational information for phylogenetically more recent brain systems to regulate complex behaviors. Overall, overt behavior is, in part, determined by the interactions of multiple learning and memory systems, some seemingly complementary and some actually competitive. An understanding of limbic system function in emotion and motivation requires that these subsystems be recognized and characterized as extended components of a distributed limbic network. ⋯ We have considered this issue in detail in the introduction to this review. The components of these systems have usually been considered as functional units or 'centers' rather than being components of a larger, interacting, and distributed functional system. In that context, we are oriented toward considerations of distributed neural systems themselves as functional entities in the brain.