The Amygdala
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
40 free The Amygdala trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The amygdala is a small cluster of cells deep in each half of the brain, and it punches far above its size. It helps decide what is dangerous, stamps emotion onto memory and nudges the body into action before conscious thought catches up. That makes it one of the most studied, and most misunderstood, parts of the brain. These questions cover the fun facts people look for: where the name comes from, where the structure sits and what it connects to, the famous patients who lived without one, the classic animal experiments, and the odd modern findings that link it to parasites, politics, climbing and comic books. The quiz suits psychology and biology students revising the emotional brain, as well as anyone who enjoys the stranger corners of neuroscience. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still leaves you with a fact worth repeating.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Brain scans found which El Capitan free soloist's amygdala barely reacting to disturbing images?
Alex Honnold
Alex Honnold lay in an MRI scanner in 2016 while pictures that jolt most people flashed past, and his amygdala stayed almost silent. A year later he climbed Yosemite's El Capitan with no rope.
Q 02Patient S.M., who lost both amygdalae and nearly all fear, panicked after inhaling which gas?
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide set off a panic S.M. described as completely new to her, because a feeling of suffocation is an alarm from inside the body. The amygdala mainly handles threats from outside.
Q 03The amygdala, a fear-processing cluster deep in the brain, is named after the Greek for which nut?
Almond
Almond is what the Greek amygdale means, and a German physician picked the name in 1822 for the shape he saw. There are two of them, one in each half of the brain.
Q 04A Berkeley study found the amygdala 60 percent more reactive after 35 hours without what?
Sleep
Sleep loss sent the amygdala into overdrive at gory pictures and weakened its link to the brain's reasoning areas. The study kept healthy young adults awake for a day, a night and another day.
Q 05The DC Comics villain Amygdala, a strongman prone to violent outbursts, fights which superhero?
Batman
Batman's foe Amygdala is Aaron Helzinger, who had that part of his brain removed in a failed attempt to cure his rage. Properly medicated, the character can be peaceful.
Q 06A study co-authored by actor Colin Firth tied a larger right amygdala to which political leaning?
Conservatism
Conservatism went with a larger right amygdala in young London adults, while liberal views went with more grey matter in the anterior cingulate. Firth commissioned the scans while guest-editing a BBC radio show.
Q 07Rats with Toxoplasma, a parasite whose cysts tend to gather in the amygdala, stop fearing which predator's urine?
Cats
Cats are the only hosts in which Toxoplasma reproduces sexually, so a rat that wanders toward one helps the parasite. Infected rats were not just fearless but attracted.
Q 08Which sense feeds the amygdala most directly, which helps explain why it stirs memories so strongly?
Smell
Smell is wired in closely: part of the amygdala takes input straight from the olfactory bulb. That is why a whiff of sunscreen or an old kitchen can bring back a feeling at once.
Q 09The amygdala helps trigger which three-word survival response, first described by Walter Cannon?
Fight or flight
Fight or flight is the racing heart and tensed muscles that follow a threat. The amygdala sets it off so fast that people jump clear of a car before they have consciously seen it.
Q 10Teens lean on the amygdala because which rational brain region is not fully mature until about 25?
Prefrontal cortex
Prefrontal cortex wiring, the seat of judgment and long-term thinking, keeps maturing until about 25. Until then the amygdala does more of the deciding, which is why teens often cannot explain a rash choice.
Q 11The human amygdala sits deep inside which lobe of the brain, the one that also processes sound?
Temporal
Temporal lobe tissue wraps around each amygdala, about halfway between the skull and the centre of the brain. Point a finger inward from just above each jaw joint and you are aiming at them.
Q 12The amygdala belongs to which set of emotion-linked brain parts, named from the Latin for border?
Limbic system
Limbic system comes from limbus, Latin for border, because its parts ring the boundary between the brain's two halves and the brainstem. French anatomist Paul Broca mapped that ring in 1878.
Q 13Which psychologist coined the term amygdala hijack in the 1995 book Emotional Intelligence?
Daniel Goleman
Q 21Which disorder, once called shell shock, brings extra amygdala activity at the sight of fearful faces?
PTSD
PTSD brains show an amygdala that fires hard at reminders of danger while the regions that should calm it respond too weakly. Shell shock was one of several names used during the world wars.
Q 22Which hormone, known for its role in childbirth, is reported to cut fear by quieting the amygdala?
Oxytocin
Oxytocin given as a nasal spray has been reported to reduce fear, and in rodents it switches on a circuit inside the amygdala that inhibits it. In labour the same hormone drives contractions.
Q 23After an amygdala alarm, the adrenal glands release which hormone that keeps the body on high alert?
Cortisol
Daniel Goleman used the phrase for a reaction far bigger than its trigger deserves, when the amygdala acts before the reasoning brain weighs in. He counted a fit of explosive laughter as one too.
Q 14Which New York University fear researcher sings in a rock band called The Amygdaloids?
Joseph LeDoux
Joseph LeDoux formed The Amygdaloids in 2006 with fellow NYU scientists and writes most of their songs about mind and brain. One 2012 EP used the word mind in every title.
Q 15On the fast 'low road' for threats, which sensory relay station signals the amygdala directly?
Thalamus
Thalamus signals take a rough shortcut to the amygdala, arriving before the slower, detailed route through the brain's outer layers. That is why you can jump at a shadow before working out what it is.
Q 16An autopsy on which 1966 University of Texas tower sniper found a brain tumor thought to have pressed on his amygdala?
Charles Whitman
Charles Whitman left a note asking doctors to examine his brain for a cause of his headaches and violent urges. The pecan-sized growth they found is still debated as a factor.
Q 17Which condition, first seen in amygdala-damaged monkeys, brings tameness and mouthing of objects?
Klüver–Bucy syndrome
Klüver–Bucy syndrome is named for the pair who removed parts of monkeys' brains in the 1930s while hunting for where the drug mescaline acts. The animals turned placid and fearless.
Q 18Which rare genetic disorder, known for a hoarse voice, destroyed both of patient S.M.'s amygdalae?
Urbach–Wiethe disease
Urbach–Wiethe disease thickens the skin and vocal cords and, in at least half of cases, hardens tissue deep in the brain into calcium deposits. Only a few hundred cases have ever been reported.
Q 19Which German, who helped give the word biology its modern sense, named the amygdala in 1822?
Karl Burdach
Karl Burdach introduced the name in a three-volume study of the brain, where he also named the arcuate fasciculus for its arching fibres. A tract in the spinal cord still carries his name.
Q 20Fear conditioning, which amygdala damage blocks, builds on which scientist's work with salivating dogs?
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov paired a signal with food until the signal alone made dogs drool. Pair a tone with a mild shock instead and a rat soon freezes at the tone, unless its amygdala is damaged.
Cortisol arrives after the first jolt, at the end of a chain of signals that runs from the brain through the pituitary gland. When the threat passes its level falls and the body's brake takes over.
Q 24Which memory structure beside the amygdala takes its name from the Greek for seahorse?
Hippocampus
Hippocampus was the name the Italian anatomist Julius Caesar Aranzi settled on in the 1500s after first likening the curved ridge to a silkworm. The amygdala flags events as emotional, which helps this neighbour store them.
Q 25Patient S.M. could not read fear in faces because she failed to look at which facial feature?
The eyes
The eyes carry most of the signal for fear, and S.M. simply never fixed on them. When researchers told her to look there, her reading of frightened faces became entirely normal.
Q 26Caltech scientists found that a woman with no working amygdala lacked any sense of what?
Personal space
Personal space meant nothing to her: she felt at ease nose to nose with a stranger. In healthy volunteers the amygdala lit up whenever someone stood very close.
Q 27A 2011 study of adults found amygdala volume rises with the size and complexity of a person's what?
Social network
Social network size and variety both tracked amygdala volume in the Boston study, and no other deep-brain structure showed a similarly strong link. Juggling many relationships seems to lean on it.
Q 28Patients with two damaged amygdalae rated strangers' faces as unusually approachable and what else?
Trustworthy
Trustworthy was their verdict even on faces most people rate as the shadiest, in a 1998 study of three patients. The amygdala seems to supply the gut feeling that says keep your distance.
Q 29In betting games, two patients with amygdala damage showed far less of which well-known money bias?
Loss aversion
Loss aversion is the habit of refusing a bet you might lose even when the possible win is much larger. Without an amygdala to apply the brakes, the two patients took such gambles calmly.
Q 30A 2011 Nature study found a more active amygdala under stress in people currently living where?
In cities
In cities, people put under pressure in the scanner showed a busier amygdala than those from towns or the countryside. Growing up urban altered a different region that helps regulate it.