Safety signals mitigate the consequences of uncontrollable stress via a circuit involving the sensory insular cortex and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis

TL;DR: Information is gathered that points toward an updated conceptual model for what neural circuit perturbations could give rise to pathological anxiety and thereby provides a roadmap for future therapeutic development.

TL;DR: A model in which the posterior insular cortex can shift behavioral strategies upon the detection of aversive internal states is supported, providing a new entry point to understand how alterations in insula circuitry may contribute to neuropsychiatric conditions.

TL;DR: In a new model, male rats approach stressed juveniles but avoid stressed adults; these behaviors require excitatory action of oxytocin within the insular cortex, which implicateinsular cortex as a key component in the circuit underlying age-dependent social responses to stressed conspecifics.

TL;DR: The insula, a “cortical hub” buried within the lateral sulcus, is involved in a number of processes including goal-directed cognition, conscious awareness, autonomic regulation, interoception, and somatosensation and may serve as a model to study new potential clinical perspectives for migraine treatment.

TL;DR: Data will be reviewed using the acoustic startle reflex in rats and humans based on attempts to operationally define fear vs anxiety, finding that symptoms of clinical anxiety are better detected in sustained rather than phasic fear paradigms.

TL;DR: Functional magnetic resonance imaging in healthy humans was applied to dissociate neural activation patterns associated with acute pain and its anticipation to find sites within the medial frontal lobe, insular cortex, and cerebellum distinct from, but close to, locations mediating pain experience itself.

TL;DR: Rats received shocks in one apparatus, and post-shock “freezing” was then assessed in that apparatus or in a different one, suggesting that post- shock freezing is entirely produced by conditioned fear elicited by cues associated with shock and that no part ofPost-shock freezing is an unconditional response (UR) directly eliciting by shock.