Horror movies help identify how brain processes fear, anxiety

Human and animal studies have established the amygdala’s role in fear processing and a parallel role the hippocampus plays in enhanced memory processing of emotional events.

It was not previously known how these two nearby brain regions interact during the recognition of fearful stimulus, said Jack Lin, a UCI professor of neurology.

“Most studies focus on each brain region in isolation,” said Lin.

“Our study unifies the varied literature on the roles of the amygdala and hippocampus in emotional processing, with direct evidence that the amygdala first extracts emotional relevance and then sends this information to the hippocampus to be processed as a memory,” he said.

From Agencies, Featured image courtesy http://az616578.vo.msecnd.net