Which part of the brain regulates fear? Options

[alexryan]

I have read some conflicting information about how regulation of fear is achieved from different sources and am hoping that someone here can set me straight.
One source claimed that the Anterior Cingulate Cortex was responsible for calming the amygdala.
Another claimed that it was the Neo-cortex.
Which is correct?

Thanks,
Alex

[koatley]

I was reading some articles on social cognition that show that the ACC, along with the dorsolateral PFC, helps to control amygdala activation following an implicit autonomic fear response. According to wikipedia, the ACC is known to be involved in the "modulation of emotional responses." So you may be on the right track there...

Regards
Luke

src: Cunningham et al. 2004. separable neural components in the processing of black and white faces. Psychological Science.

[adovid]

History Channel, the brain.

They describe how the military has learned to teach it's cadets how to overcome fear by: goal setting, controlled breathing and positive self talk. Most of these are associated with using the neo-cortex to override the fight or flight response.

It's not just one part of the brain but the entirety of the neocortex that is required to fight fear which is a very strong emotion.

[rockmartinn24]

Human Brain is a main part of the body. Mood is probably influenced by several parts of the brain. Limbic system is the part of the brain that appears to be most directly involved in human emotion-regulation problems. You can also contact best doctor for it.

[Hey Hey]

Human Brain is a main part of the body. Mood is probably influenced by several parts of the brain. Limbic system is the part of the brain that appears to be most directly involved in human emotion-regulation problems. You can also contact best doctor for it.

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[Rick]

My sentiment too. You can avoid scrolling by clicking on the "first unread" dot on the "Active Topics" list, and getting back to top by control-home (on a Mac it might be different). No scrolling necessary in Windows.

[Paul King]

I have read some conflicting information about how regulation of fear is achieved... One source claimed that the Anterior Cingulate Cortex was responsible for calming the amygdala. Another claimed that it was the Neo-cortex.

I'm not sure it is really known how fear regulation (or any type of emotional regulation) is achieved.

Emotions seems to be the result of a complex web of signaling activity and dynamic processes involving a large number of brain areas.

It is often said that the amygdala is responsible for fear, and it does seem to have a prominent role in centrally organizing fear responses. However extreme fear reactions can be triggered by stimulating certain nuclei in the brain stem as well, for example. Also, the Amydala is involved in a lot of things, including certain aspects of memory (good/bad valance tagging), reward processing, desire, motivation, attention.

As far as what part of the brain "regulates" the amygdala, that is not clear either. The Amygdala gets input from a large number of brain areas, including many cortical areas. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) figure prominently, although ironically, these project to the part of the amygdala involved in sensory processing (the BLA), rather than the part most involved in emotional responses (the central nucleus). But the two are connected.

A quick search on Google Scholar turns up papers discussing roles for the following areas in emotional regulation of the amygdala: ventromedial PFC, dorsomedial PFC, lateral and dorsal PFC, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).

"amygdala hijack" is a phrase that has appeared recently in pop-psychology to describe situations in which strong emotions take over control of behavior and supress more reasoned, goal-oriented influences, presumeably coming from the prefrontal cortex. However this concept seems to be a metaphor for coaching people on emotion management that is inspired by neuroscience but is not an actual neuroscience theory.

What seems likely is that emotions, including fear, are complex homeostatic systems involving a dynamic exchange and synthesis of signals across dozens of brain areas. It seems unlikely that any one part of the brain has a regulating role, although there are probably certain areas, for example prefrontal regions, that have a greater ability than others to influence, inhibit or alter emotional responses such as fear to align them with cognitively-derived goals.