[1] The lateral nuclei receives the majority of sensory information, which arrives directly from the temporal lobe structures, including the hippocampus and primary auditory cortex.

The basolateral amygdala also receives dense neuromodulatory inputs from ventral tegmental area (VTA),[2][3] locus coeruleus (LC),[4] and basal forebrain,[5] whose integrity are important for associative learning.

The basolateral amygdala and nucleus accumbens shell together mediate specific Pavlovian-instrumental transfer, a phenomenon in which a classically conditioned stimulus modifies operant behavior.

When neurons within this ensemble are silenced in a rodent model the affective component of pain is essentially erased, while a robust reflex response is maintained.

[14] This is thought to implicate the basolateral amygdala in assigning a “pain tag” to valence information which may intrinsically encode that there is a priority to engage in pain-protective behaviors.