The Neuropsychiatry of Limbic and Subcortical Disorders

Limbic and subcortical brain regions mediate fundamental functions such as memory, emotion, motivation, and mood. Limbic and subcortical systems also play a key neurobiological role in other important aspects of human experience, such as substance abuse, reward systems, and religious experience. Most neuropsychiatric disorders involve dysfunction of subcortical structures or the limbic or paralimbic cortex. Dysfunction of temporolimbic systems produces some of the most dramatic and challengin…