The BLA receives massive cortical and thalamic input carrying monomodal and highly processed polymodal sensory information (Sah et al., 2003; Pape and Pare, 2010). The BLA contains glutamatergic pyramidal projection neurons that exhibit very low rates of spontaneous activity due to a high level of tonic GABAergic input supplied by local interneurons. There are also extensive reciprocal, predominantly excitatory, connections between various nuclei within the BLA (Sah et al., 2003; Knapska et al., 2007). Furthermore, the BLA projects to the nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and the CeA (Sah et al., 2003; Knapska et al., 2007).
