In nature, animals display defensive behaviors that reflect the spatiotemporal distance of
threats. Laboratory-based paradigms that elicit specific defensive responses in rodents have …

Upon increasing levels of threat, animals activate qualitatively different defensive modes,
including freezing and active fight-or-flight reactions. Whereas freezing is a form of …

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 …

Half of all Americans have money in the stock market, yet economists can't agree on whether
investors and markets are rational and efficient, as modern financial theory assumes, or …

Central regulation of food intake is a key mechanism contributing to energy homeostasis.
Many neural circuits that are thought to orchestrate feeding behavior overlap with the brain's …

The brain mechanisms of fear have been studied extensively using Pavlovian fear
conditioning, a procedure that allows exploration of how the brain learns about and later …

Research on avoidance conditioning began in the late 1930s as a way to use laboratory
experiments to better understand uncontrollable fear and anxiety. Avoidance was initially …

The hypothalamic neuropeptide oxytocin (OT), which controls childbirth and lactation,
receives increasing attention for its effects on social behaviors, but how it reaches central …

The psychology of extinction has been studied for decades. Approximately 10 years ago,
however, there began a concerted effort to understand the neural circuits of extinction of fear …

What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? do we control our
emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic …