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Fear

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Neuroscience in the 21st Century

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Abstract

Fear is a conscious emotion but can also be seen as a bodily response to threat. Understanding how the brain assigns emotional significance to sensory stimuli through experimental fear conditioning has advanced our understanding of fear learning. The amygdala serves as a key node in the fear circuit, associating conditioned stimuli (such as tones) with unconditioned stimuli (such as shocks), at specific synapses using NMDA receptors and associated signaling cascades. The output neurons of the amygdala project to hypothalamic and brain stem areas that mediate autonomic, hormonal, and behavioral fear responses. Transmission through the amygdala is modulated by inputs from the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Fear memories are long lasting and like other forms of memory are consolidated, reconsolidated, or extinguished, depending on reactivation of the memory. Fear circuits in rodents have homologues in the human brain. The human amygdala responds to fearful faces as well as conditioned cues and is modulated by prefrontal and hippocampal circuits. Translation of rodent studies to humans has led to new treatments for anxiety disorders based on modulation of fear extinction and reconsolidation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Anatomy & Neurobiology, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, San Juan, Puerto Rico

    Gregory J. Quirk

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  1. Gregory J. Quirk
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Correspondence to Gregory J. Quirk .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rockefeller University Lab. Neurobiology & Behaviour, New York, New York, USA

    Donald W. Pfaff

  2. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), Rockville, Maryland, USA

    Nora D. Volkow

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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Quirk, G.J. (2015). Fear. In: Pfaff, D., Volkow, N. (eds) Neuroscience in the 21st Century. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6434-1_73-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6434-1_73-3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6434-1

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