In mice, exposure to different threatening stimuli, such as a footshock, a predator or an aggressive mouse, results in the activation of different medial hypothalamic nuclei. The authors selectively inhibited neurons in different nuclei in the ventromedial hypothalamus and found that disruption of specific hypothalamic circuits disrupted threat-specific behavioural responses. These results suggest that selective pharmacological blockade of different types of fear might be possible.
References
Silva, B. A. et al. Independent hypothalamic circuits for social and predator fear. Nature Neurosci. 16, 1731–1733 (2013)
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Lewis, S. Facets of fear. Nat Rev Neurosci 15, 2 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3655
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3655