Decades of research has identified the brain areas that are involved in fear, fear extinction,
anxiety and related defensive behaviours. Newly developed genetic and viral tools …

The amygdala has long been associated with emotion and motivation, playing an essential
part in processing both fearful and rewarding environmental stimuli. How can a single …

Although anxiety disorders represent a major societal problem demanding new therapeutic
targets, these efforts have languished in the absence of a mechanistic understanding of this …

Stress has a critical role in the development and expression of many psychiatric disorders,
and is a defining feature of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Stress also limits the …

The consolidation of context-dependent emotional memory requires communication
between the hippocampus and the basolateral amygdala (BLA), but the mechanisms of this …

Context is an ever-present combination of discrete environmental elements capable of
influencing many psychological processes. When context is associated with an aversive …

Fear-related disorders are thought to reflect strong and persistent fear memories. The
basolateral amygdala (BLA) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) form strong reciprocal …

The amygdalar nuclear complex and hippocampal/parahippocampal region are key
components of the limbic system that play a critical role in emotional learning and memory …

Current models of addiction and anxiety stem from the idea that aberrant function and
remodeling of neural circuits cause the pathological behaviors. According to this hypothesis …

Some humans thrive whereas others resign when exposed to threatening situations
throughout life. Social support has been identified as an important modulator of these …