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Researchers in Europe and the US wanted to find out exactly what happens to our brain when we find ourselves stunned with fright in the hope of better understanding how fear interplays with human anxiety disorders.

For the first time, they traced and linked three parts of the brain responsible for freezing behaviours: the amygdala, ventrolateral periaqueductal grey region and magnocellular nucleus.

Mice are excellent lab animals where it comes to anxiety and fear experiments. When a mouse is scared, its defensive behaviours range from freezing, attacking, risk assessmentamendmentargumentassignment assessment or fleeing the scene. How a mouse acts depends on variables such as access to escape routes or the level of threat faced.

So Andreas Lüthi at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Switzerland and colleagues from Europe and the US observed brain activity in mice placed in frightening situations to traceleadruncomplete trace the brain circuits plainneedresponsiblerespective responsible for freezing behaviours.

In particular, the researchers wanted to learn more about a part of the brain called the ventrolateral periaqueductal grey region, which was believed to takeplayaddremove play some part in a mouse’s instinct to freeze or flee.