Have you ever been afraid of something, or do you fear that something might happen to you when you hear a loud noise? Then there are certain parts of your brain being activated. However, not all fears activate the same part of your brain. Scientists have finally discovered where complex emotional fears are formed. Keep reading to discover more!
Fear is primal, but not all fears are equal. Simple threats, like loud noises, tap a basic circuit in the amygdala. Complex fears, from linking a smell to a past trauma, must stitch multiple senses into a single memory. Now, researchers have pinpointed that process to a surprising brain region: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC).
How the Brain Bundles Sensory Cues into Fear
Using tiny head-mounted scopes in rats, scientists at Japan’s RIKEN Centre peered into neural activity as animals learned to associate tones, lights, and contexts with a mild shock. They found that the dmPFC, not the amygdala, assembled these “associative bundles.” When they severed dmPFC-to-amygdala connections, the rats no longer showed fear to the combined cues, only to the direct shock tone.
This reveals that complex emotional memories live upstream of the basic fear center. The dmPFC integrates multiple sensory inputs into a cohesive fear response, enabling the brain to generalize fear from one trigger to related ones.
Targeting Emotional Fears for Better Treatments
Emotional fears, like PTSD and phobias, often involve intricate fear networks. For example, panic at the sound of rain or anxiety when entering a certain street. By focusing on the dmPFC’s role, future therapies could disrupt these associative bundles before they reinforce debilitating habits.
Current treatments target the amygdala’s response or use broad exposure therapy. A next generation of interventions might zero in on the dmPFC, offering more precise rewiring of fear circuits. As we map the pathways of memory and emotion, the possibility of clearing painful associations at their root comes into sharper view.
Credit:
- Source: Nature, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09001-2
- Featured image: Pexels
