Freeze or run? Not that simple

Fear can make you run, it can make you fight, and it can glue you to the spot. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, Italy and GlaxoSmithKline in Verona, Italy, have identified not only the part of the brain but the specific type of neurones that determine how mice react to a frightening stimulus. In a study published today in Neuron, they combined pharmaceutical and genetic approaches with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in mice. Their findings show that deciding whether or not to freeze to fear is a more complex task for our brains than we realised...

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