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Neural Circuits Underlying Innate Fear

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Neural Circuits of Innate Behaviors

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 1284))

Abstract

Fear is defined as a fundamental emotion promptly arising in the context of threat and when danger is perceived. Fear can be innate or learned. Examples of innate fear include fears that are triggered by predators, pain, heights, rapidly approaching objects, and ancestral threats such as snakes and spiders. Animals and humans detect and respond more rapidly to threatening stimuli than to nonthreatening stimuli in the natural world. The threatening stimuli for most animals are predators, and most predators are themselves prey to other animals. Predatory avoidance is of crucial importance for survival of animals. Although humans are rarely affected by predators, we are constantly challenged by social threats such as a fearful or angry facial expression. This chapter will summarize the current knowledge on brain circuits processing innate fear responses to visual stimuli derived from studies conducted in mice and humans.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education CNS Regeneration Collaborative Joint Laboratory, Guangdong-Hongkong-Macau Institute of CNS Regeneration, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

    Chaoran Ren

  2. School of Basic Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

    Qian Tao

Authors
  1. Chaoran Ren
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  2. Qian Tao
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Correspondence to Chaoran Ren .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, Key Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Hao Wang

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Ren, C., Tao, Q. (2020). Neural Circuits Underlying Innate Fear. In: Wang, H. (eds) Neural Circuits of Innate Behaviors. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 1284. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7086-5_1

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