Fear, anxiety and the functional architecture of the human central extended amygdala
Alexander J. Shackman, Shannon E. Grogans, Andrew S. Fox
Abstract
Fear, anxiety and other threat-elicited states help to protect organisms from harm; but when expressed too intensely or pervasively, they can be crippling 1 . Fear and anxiety disorders are common, and existing treatments are inconsistently effective, underscoring the urgency of clarifying the underlying neurobiology 1 . We were excited to read Tseng and colleagues’ Review, which highlights evidence that fear and anxiety reflect bi-directional interactions between threat-sensitive brain circuits and the endocrine, immune, gastrointestinal and reproductive systems (Tseng, Y.-T., Schaefke, B., Wei, P. & Wang, L. Defensive responses: behaviour, the brain and the body. Nat. Rev. Neurosci . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-023-00736-3 ; 2023) 2 .