Brain's fear center is equipped with built-in suffocation sensor
Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - 14:35
in Biology & Nature
The portion of our brains that is responsible for registering fear and even panic has a built-in chemical sensor that is triggered by a primordial terror -- suffocation. A new article shows in studies of mice that the rise in acid levels in the brain upon breathing carbon dioxide triggers acid-sensing channels that evoke fear behavior.