When Fear Is Near

By Dean Mobbs, Predrag Petrovic, Jennifer L. Marchant, Demis Hassabis, Nikolaus Weiskopf, Ben Seymour, R. J. Dolan, ChrisD . Frith. Science, 2007

854 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Humans, like other animals, alter their behavior depending on whether a threat is close or distant. We investigated spatial imminence of threat by developing an active avoidance paradigm in which volunteers were pursued through a maze by a virtual predator endowed with an ability to chase, capture, and inflict pain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that as the virtual predator grew closer, brain activity shifted from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex to the periaqueductal gray. This shift showed maximal expression when a high degree of pain was anticipated. Moreover, imminence-driven periaqueductal gray activity correlated with increased subjective degree of dread and decreased confidence of escape. Our findings cast light on the neural dynamics of threat anticipation and have implications for the neurobiology of human anxiety-related disorders.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c09e0080913cdbd3cf33406223bff659f347317e

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Citations in the corpus

The brain basis of emotion: A meta-analytic review (2012, positive): “…fleeing, vocalization, and reproductive behavior (e.g., Carrive et al. 1989; Behbehani 1995; Gregg & Siegel 2001; Kim et al. 1993; Lovick 1992; Mobbs et al. 2007; Van der Horst & Holstege 1998) and also sends projections back to cortical sites involved in the regulation of visceral…”
The ecology of human fear: survival optimization and the nervous system (2015, background): “…older adaptations such as reflexive fight, flight, or freeze (FFF) systems and are strongly interconnected, innervated by, and in competition with, forebrain structures including the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala (Öngür et al., 2003; Price, 2005; Mobbs et al., 2007; Price and Drevets, 2010).”
Reinforcement learning: the good, the bad and the ugly. (2008, positive): “The consummatory Pavlovian response to immediate threat is panic, probably mediated by the peri-acqueductal gray [135,91]; such responses have themselves recently been observed in an imaging study which involved a virtual threatening ‘chase’ [136].”
What Can Ethobehavioral Studies Tell Us About The Brain’s Fear System? (2016, methodology): “Mobbs and colleagues [70,71] utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and an ‘active escape paradigm’ (AEP) wherein a virtual predator chases a virtual representation of the participant, and upon being ‘caught’, the participants receive an electric shock.”
Lessons from a Faraway land: The effect of spatial distance on creative cognition (2009, background): “(図は発表者作成、エラーバーは SE) なお、近条件と統制条件の間に有意差は見られなかった(F<1) また、アンケートで調査した項目のいずれについても、各条件間で有意差は見られなかった(Fs<1) 題(実験 2)のパフォーマンスに明白な影響を与えた本結果は先行研究(Förster et al., 2004)と一貫しており、時間的距離での結果を空間的距離に拡張しているまた、統制条件を加えた実験 2 より、近い知覚の状態で創造性が下がるのではなく、遠い知覚の状態で創造性が上がることが明らかになった(Förster et al., 2004, Study 5) …”
Construal Level Theory and Spatial Distance Implications for Mental Representation, Judgment, and Behavior (2011, background): “, threat ) from objects and events that are farther away from them ( see Mobbs et al .”
The Integration of Negative Affect, Pain, and Cognitive Control in the Cingulate Cortex (2011, background): “Likewise, in humans, aMCC is activated when escaping from a 'virtual predator' whose imminence dynamically varied in a game-like avoidance task (failure to escape the predator was paired with shocks”
Neuroimaging of the Periaqueductal Gray: State of the Field (2011, background): “As the predator grew closer, brain activity shifted from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex to the periaqueductal gray (Mobbs et al., 2007).”