Anxiety Forum

[shoe]

This article talks about research into the role the Amygdala plays in creating fear. This section of the brain, which is believed to play a key role in emotions, is considered to be responsible for fear conditioning as well as fear extinction.

There are reportedly two pathways to the Amygdala, a fast and a short path. The fast path seems to run straight from some type of sensory stimulus directly to the Amygdala, basically turning on fear instantly given the right stimuli. The longer path goes to the higher cortex first, and allows for more processing of the stimuli before reaching the Amygdala. This slower path can then override the faster path and "lead to conscious feelings of fear or no fear", according to the article. A dysfunction in the Amygdala (and associated areas of the brain) could then be responsible for the development of certain phobias.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug05/figuring.html


P.S. I've also read some of another article in the Journal of Neuroscience which uses the D-cycloserine (DCS) drug to work as an agonist on certain NMDA receptors in the Amygdala to assist in fear extinction. Kind of a technical research article, but it does show how research into the Amygdala appears to be a step in the right direction:
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/22/6/2343