
In 1954, Olds and Milner found that rats with metal electrodes implanted into their nucleus accumbens, as well as their septal nuclei, repeatedly pressed a lever activating this region. These responses are heavily modulated by dopaminergic projections from the limbic system. It is highly interconnected with the nucleus accumbens, which plays a role in sexual arousal and the "high" derived from certain recreational drugs. The limbic system operates by influencing the endocrine system and the autonomic nervous system. The limbic system is where the subcortical structures meet the cerebral cortex. The structures and interacting areas of the limbic system are involved in motivation, emotion, learning, and memory.

#Which part of the brain controls emotion series
MacLean as a series of cortical structures surrounding the boundary between the cerebral hemispheres and the brainstem. The limbic system was originally defined by Paul D. Īnatomical components of the limbic system This processed information is often relayed to a collection of structures from the telencephalon, diencephalon, and mesencephalon, including the prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, limbic thalamus, hippocampus including the parahippocampal gyrus and subiculum, nucleus accumbens (limbic striatum), anterior hypothalamus, ventral tegmental area, midbrain raphe nuclei, habenular commissure, entorhinal cortex, and olfactory bulbs.

With a primordial structure, the limbic system is involved in lower order emotional processing of input from sensory systems and consists of the amygdaloid nuclear complex ( amygdala), mammillary bodies, stria medullaris, central gray and dorsal and ventral nuclei of Gudden. Emotional life is largely housed in the limbic system, and it critically aids the formation of memories. It supports a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long-term memory, and olfaction. The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.
