Brain's fear center is equipped with built-in suffocation sensor

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 14:35 in Biology & Nature

The portion of our brains that is responsible for registering fear and even panic has a built-in chemical sensor that is triggered by a primordial terror -- suffocation. A new article shows in studies of mice that the rise in acid levels in the brain upon breathing carbon dioxide triggers acid-sensing channels that evoke fear behavior.

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