The amygdala doesn't have a direct connection to the visual cortex, as this article suggests. The amygdala receives stimuli from the thalamus, just as the neocortex does, and (iirc) the amygdala's outputs can affect the neocortex, but that's not how the neocortex gets its signals. The signals go to both the amygdala and neocortex independently, like a fiber optic splitter.<p>Because it takes so long to think, and probably because the amygdala is so small and simple compared to the neocortex, the visual senses we receive hit the amygdala <i>well before</i> they hit the visual cortex. We experience pain and pleasure memory response from senses before we even know what those senses are.<p>You may have two memories of a horse, one just a plain-old horse, and one a horse while you were getting shocked. Since the amygdala senses the horse first, the emotional memory is returned first, which is why any attempt to bring up "horse" will dig up one of the emotional memory horse records. You then have to wait for the neocortex to catch up and say, hold on a second, this is just a regular horse. When your neocortex is completely swamped by the amygdala it is called "amygdala hijack".<p>The quoted paper is basically saying "the hippocampus and amygdala can affect each other", which is basically true: usually one does not rule the other, and they work in concert to give you a full picture of things. And just like the amygdala can provide an emotional veneer over logical memories, the hippocampus can temper the emotional response, for example with mindfulness practice.