Fear is an adaptive emotion that helps us cope with threatening situations. Deep within the temporal lobe of the brain is the amygdala, the most studied brain area involved in fear. The amygdala uses ...

Chronic stress can differentially change the neuronal structure and function in the brain, leading to anxiety disorders and other neuropsychiatric illness. Now, researchers may understand how the ...

Treating anxiety, depression and other disorders may depend on the amygdala, a part of the brain that controls strong emotional reactions, especially fear. But a deep understanding of this structure ...

One of the characteristics of depression is a tendency to perceive sensory stimuli and everyday situations in an excessively negative way. But the mechanisms underpinning this 'negativity bias,' which ...

Over the course of their lives, humans build subjective internal models outlining the associations between specific environmental stimuli and rewards that could be gained from interacting with them.

To ensure we get the calories and hydration we need, the brain relies on a complex network of cells, signals, and pathways to guide us when to eat, drink, or stop. Yet, much about how the brain ...

A Dartmouth study challenges the conventional view that the amygdala-the two-sided structure deep in the brain involved in emotion, learning, and decision making-is simply the brain's primitive "fear ...