The amygdala and, more recently, also the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, have been widely implicated in fear and anxiety. Much of our current knowledge is derived from animal studies and suggests an intricate convergence and divergence in functions related to defensive responding. In a recent paper, Klumpers and colleagues set out to examine these functions in a human fear learning procedure using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Their main findings were a role for the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in threat anticipation, and for the amygdala in threat confrontation. Here, we provide a critical summary of this interesting study and point out some important issues that were not addressed by its authors. In particular, we first take a closer look at the striking differences between both samples that were combined for the study, and, secondly, we provide an in-depth discussion of their findings in relation to existing neurobehavioral models.

中文翻译：

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恐惧学习过程中终末纹和杏仁核的人床核的不同活动模式。

杏仁核以及近来的纹状体的床核已经广泛地与恐惧和焦虑有关。我们目前的很多知识都来自动物研究，并表明与防御反应相关的功能存在复杂的趋同和分歧。在最近的一篇论文中，Klumpers及其同事着手使用功能磁共振成像在人类恐惧学习程序中检查这些功能。他们的主要发现是终端纹状体的床核在威胁预测中的作用，以及杏仁核在威胁对抗中的作用。在这里，我们提供了一项有趣的研究的关键摘要，并指出了一些其作者未解决的重要问题。特别是，我们首先要仔细研究结合在一起进行研究的两个样本之间的显着差异，并且，