https://www.quantamagazine.org/mental-phenomena-dont-map-into-the-brain-as-expected-20210824/
A quanta article titled The Brain Doesn’t Think the Way You Think It Does Joseph LeDoux > <https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/joseph-e-ledoux.html> is a > neuroscientist at NYU known for his pioneering work on the amygdala, which > is often referred to as the fear center of the brain. But that framing, he > says, is very wrong — and very harmful. “I kept being introduced over the > years as someone who discovered how feelings of fear come out of the > amygdala,” he said. “But I would always kind of flinch when I would be > introduced this way. Finally, I had enough.” > LeDoux has spent the past decade emphasizing that the amygdala isn’t > involved in generating fear at all. Fear, he points out, is a cognitive > interpretation of a situation, a subjective experience tied up in memory > and other processes. The psychological phenomena that some people > experience as fear may be experienced as something very different by > others. Research shows that the feeling of fear arises in the prefrontal > cortex and related brain areas. > The amygdala, on the other hand, is involved with processing and > responding to threats — an ancient, subconscious behavioral and > physiological mechanism. “The evidence shows that it’s not always fear that > causes the behavior,” LeDoux said. > Calling the amygdala the fear center might seem innocuous, he continued, > but “then the amygdala inherits all the semantic baggage of fear.” That > mistake can distort attempts to develop medications, including those aiming > to reduce anxiety. When potential treatments are tested in animals under > stress, if the animals behave less timidly or show less physiological > arousal, it’s usually interpreted as a reduction in anxiety or fear levels. > But a medication can change someone’s behavioral or physiological responses > — those outputs of the amygdala — without curing feelings of anxiety, > LeDoux said. “The whole field is suffering because of this confusion,” he said. > Similar problems occur in other areas, he added, such as studies of > perception, where the physical processing of the sensory stimulus and the > conscious experience of it are often bundled together. In both cases, > LeDoux believes “these need to be pulled apart.” -- rec --
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