Why does extreme danger paralyse some people while others remain calm? Neuroscientists say the answer lies in how the ...

Fear has a scent. Here’s how this invisible chemical signal has shaped human perceptions, emotions and survival instincts.

Climber Alex Honnold is set to scale one of the world's tallest buildings without any ropes or safety nets.

SM is a woman with a very rare disease that destroyed her amygdala, a structure in the forebrain that is involved with our experience of fear. Essentially all other parts of SM's brain are intact. She ...

In haunted houses across the country this month, threatening figures will jump out of the shadows, prompting visitors — wide-eyed and heart racing —to instinctively freeze and flee. Evolutionarily ...

“Fear can freeze us in place, push us to fight or flee, or even drive us to seek comfort in others,” said Ashley Reno, Psy.D., associate professor and chief psychologist in the University of Alabama ...

Dangers come but dangers also go and when they do, the brain has an "all-clear" signal that teaches it to extinguish its fear. A new study in mice by MIT neuroscientists shows that the signal is the ...

I’ve been studying the amygdala for more than 30 years. When I started this work, research on this brain region was a lonely field of inquiry. The hippocampus was all the rage, and I sometimes felt ...

MOUNT PLEASANT, SC, USA - AUGUST 24: A dose of MDMA in the office of Dr. Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist, who has studied the use of MDMA as a treatment for PTSD in Mount Pleasant, SC, USA. (Photo ...

Deleting a gene called PTEN in certain brain cells disrupts the brain’s fear circuitry and triggers anxiety-like behavior in mice — key traits seen in autism. Researchers mapped how this genetic tweak ...

This is the mind’s game behind polarization in humans: our opinions are often less about truth and more about identity.