ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Neuron numbers increase in the human amygdala from birth to adulthood, but not in autism.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 107 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
107 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analytic connectivity modelling of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in autism spectrum disorders.Brain imaging and behavior · 2023Pooled it
- Normative Modeling of Amygdala Subfields and Disease-Specific Vulnerabilities Across Neurological Disorders.Neuroscience bulletin · 2026Article
- Autism with social anxiety is associated with acquiescent behaviors and enlarged amygdala volume.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- The Amygdala and Politics.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Disrupted maternal care alters neural-microglia interactions in the primate paralaminar (PL) nucleus of the amygdala.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neonatal amygdala microstructure and structural connectivity are associated with autistic traits at 2 years of age.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Prenatal maternal immune activation triggers lasting cell-specific transcriptomic dysregulation in the amygdala of primate offspring.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Postnatal plasticity in the paralaminar nucleus of the pallial amygdala in juvenile swine brain.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Immature Excitatory Neurons in the Postnatal Ferret Paralaminar Nuclei and Their Relationship to the Amygdala Across Species.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2026Article
- Patient-derived brain organoids reveal divergent neuronal activity across subpopulations of autism spectrum disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Understanding the developmental trajectory of behavioral problems and subcortical structure morphometry in healthy children at 6 years old and long-term impact of early nutrition: the COGNIS study.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Postnatal maturation of the basolateral and paralaminar amygdala in rodents: implications for social-emotional development.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Integrating Brain Morphological Features and Ionized Serum Magnesium to Identify Mild Tic Comorbidity in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2026Article
- Age-Related Changes in the Amygdala From In Utero to Early Childhood: Association With Social and Cognitive Outcomes.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Age-related differences in axon pruning and myelination may alter neural signaling in autism spectrum disorder.Molecular autism · 2025Article
- Outdoor Air Pollution Is Related to Amygdala Subregion Volume and Apportionment in Early Adolescence.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- A unique neural and behavioral profile of social anxiety in autism.Research square · 2025Article
- Age-Dependent Effects of Loss of Contactin-Associated Protein-Like 2, an Autism-Associated Gene, on the Acquisition and Recall of Fear Memory.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025Article
- A Shared Threat-Anticipation Circuit Is Dynamically Engaged at Different Moments by Certain and Uncertain Threat.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Emergence and maintenance of modularity in neural networks with Hebbian and anti-Hebbian inhibitory STDP.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
47 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Remarkably little is known about the postnatal cellular development of the human amygdala. It plays a central role in mediating emotional behavior and has an unusually protracted development well into adulthood, increasing in size by 40% from youth to adulthood. Variation from this typical neurodevelopmental trajectory could have profound implications on normal emotional development. We report the results of a stereological analysis of the number of neurons in amygdala nuclei of 52 human brains ranging from 2 to 48 years of age [24 neurotypical and 28 autism spectrum disorder (ASD)]. In neurotypical development, the number of mature neurons in the basal and accessory basal nuclei increases from childhood to adulthood, coinciding with a decrease of immature neurons within the paralaminar nucleus. Individuals with ASD, in contrast, show an initial excess of amygdala neurons during childhood, followed by a reduction in adulthood across nuclei. We propose that there is a long-term contribution of mature neurons from the paralaminar nucleus to other nuclei of the neurotypical human amygdala and that this growth trajectory may be altered in ASD, potentially underlying the volumetric changes detected in ASD and other neurodevelopmental or neuropsychiatric disorders.
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