Morphological and physiological characteristics of neurons located in the dorsolateral and two ventral subdivisions of the lateral amygdala (LA) have been compared in order to differentiate their roles in the formation and storage of fear memories (Alphs et al, SfN abs 623.1, 2003). Briefly, in these populations, significant differences are observed in input resistance, membrane time constant, firing frequency, dendritic tortuosity, numbers of primary dendrites, dendritic segments and dendritic nodes. In the present study, we perform computational simulations using NEURON to (i) build a model of representative LA principal cells in each of these subpopulations; and (ii) analyze the functional correlates of differences in their morphology with respect to intrinsic firing properties and synaptic integration. To this end, we build a model using three-dimensional reconstructions of LA pyramidal cells in each of the three subdivisions, by imposing eight ion channels (Na,KDR,KA,BK,KAHP,CaN,CaL,CaT) and comparing...