Personal space regulation by the human amygdala

The amygdala plays key roles in emotion and social cognition, but how this translates to face-to-face interactions involving real people remains unknown. Here we found that a patient with complete amygdala lesions lacks any sense of personal space. Furthermore, healthy individuals showed amygdala activation to close personal proximity. The amygdala may be required to trigger the strong emotional reactions normally following personal space violations, thus regulating interpersonal distance in humans. People automatically and reliably regulate the distance maintained between themselves and others during social interaction1. Personal space, defined as the area individuals maintain around themselves into which intrusion by others causes discomfort2, is one mechanism by which this automatic regulation of interpersonal distance is achieved. However, little is known regarding the neural substrates of personal space. One candidate brain region is the amygdala, since studies in nonhuman primates have found that this structure is involved in social approach and avoidance3-5. Here we show that one's sense of personal space is dependent on the amygdala