What Scares Us And Why?
Here is a short article via Scientific American on the neuroscience of fear. (Click here to skip the introduction and read the article on fear)
Article Introduction (Via Scientific American)
What’s scarier, a deadly snake slithering across your path during a hike or watching a 1,000-point drop in the stock market? Although both may instill fear, researchers disagree over the nature and cause of this very powerful emotion.
“When you see the stock market fall 1,000 points, that’s the same as seeing a snake,” says Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience and psychology the Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety based at New York University. “Fear is the response to the immediate stimuli. The empty feeling in your gut, the racing of your heart, palms sweating, the nervousness—that’s your brain responding in a preprogrammed way to a very specific threat.”
Article Excerpt (Via Scientific American)
“In the fMRI research, the reaction to fear-inducing stimuli shows up in the amygdala, an almond-size mass beneath the temporal lobe also known as the brain’s fear center. Hirsch says the amygdala is the first responder to threatening stimuli.”
“Hirsch notes that the amygdala responds to more than just facial expressions. “If you were in a dark alley and something scary jumped out at you,” she says, “it would be the amygdala that would contribute to your decision to run.”
