the amygdala is the fear center of the brain.
the amygdala is the fear center of the brain.
what is the fear center of the brain?
the amygdala
fear conditioning is thought to depend upon an area of the brain called the amygdala. the amygdala is involved in acquisition, storage, and expression of conditioned fear memory. electrophysiological recordings from the amygdala have demonstrated that cells in that region undergo long-term potentiation (ltp), a form of synaptic plasticity believed to underlie learning. additionally, inhibition of neurons in the amygdala disrupts fear acquisition, while stimulation of those neurons can drive fear-related behaviors, such as freezing behavior in rodents. this indicates that proper function of the amygdala is both necessary for fear conditioning and sufficient to drive fear behaviors. the amygdala is not exclusively the fear center, but also an area for responding to various environmental stimuli. several studies have shown that when faced with unpredictable neutral stimuli, amygdala activity increases. therefore, even in situations of uncertainty and not necessarily fear, the amygdala plays a role in alerting other brain regions that encourage safety and survival responses.
fear conditioning
the film's title sequence is a 90-second visual effects composition that depicts the inside of the narrator's brain at a microscopic level; the camera pulls back to the outside, starting at his fear center and following the thought processes initiated by his fear impulse. the sequence, designed in part by fincher, was budgeted separately from the rest of the film at first, but the sequence was awarded by the studio in january 1999. fincher hired digital domain and its visual effects supervisor kevin mack, who won an academy award for visual effects for the 1998 film "what dreams may come", for the sequence. the company mapped the computer-generated brain using an l-system, and the design was detailed using renderings by medical illustrator katherine jones. the pullback sequence from within the brain to the outside of the skull included neurons, action potentials, and a hair follicle. haug explained the artistic license that fincher took with the shot, "while he wanted to keep the brain passage looking like electron microscope photography, that look had to be coupled with the feel of a night dive—wet, scary, and with a low depth of field." the shallow depth of field was accomplished with the ray tracing process.
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