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The Pathways of Fear

Fear is an important factor in evolution and in life. Since we have fears we are able to

survive. Fears cause us to stay out of dangerous situations, which therefore keep us alive. There

are multiple ways to become scared, whether it is by a movie, a friend frightening you, or a

phobia. There are many ways to become afraid. When experiencing fear you can respond in two

different ways, by the autonomic response or the conscious response.

The autonomic response acts subconsciously similarly to breathing and the heart rate. It

is an instant reaction rather than a thought out response like the conscious response. To trigger

the autonomic response there first needs to be a stimulus, such as a spider or snake. The senses

notice the stimulus and relay the information to the thalamus. The thalamus is unable to

comprehend whether the information it received is a threat or not therefore it relays the

information to the amygdala. The amygdala receives the neural impulses and conveys the

information to the hypothalamus to try and protect you. The hypothalamus then activates the

fight or flight response, which further triggers the physical reactions including dilating pupils,

increasing the heart rate, etc. The body conducts this system of responses because the

sympathetic nervous system sends out impulses to the muscles and glands to release epinephrine

or adrenaline. The sudden surge of adrenaline causes the body to have physical reactions.

The Conscious response is very similar to its name. During the conscious response you

are fully aware of what your reaction is and you carefully consider all of the options. Just like the

autonomic response it starts with a stimulus. The eyes, ears, or any of the five senses relay the

information to the thalamus. Since the conscious response is more thought out the information is

sent to the sensory cortex, where it is interpreted. The sensory cortex passes along the data to the

hippocampus to establish the context of the information to determine whether or not it poses a
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threat. If there is a threat the information is passed along to the amygdala, which immediately

transfers it to the hypothalamus and tells it to activate the fight or flight response. If there is not a

threat a message is relayed to the amygdala that there is no danger. The amygdala tells the

hypothalamus that there is no danger and the fight or flight response is shut off. The conscious

response is more practical than the autonomic response but it also takes longer. Since this

process takes longer than the autonomic response there might be a moment where you feel a little

bit of fear until your brain realizes that there is no threat or until your brain activates the fight or

flight response and you react to the situation.

The autonomic and conscious responses are both reactions to sudden stimuli and phobias.

There are three different types of phobias, specific phobias, social phobias, and agoraphobias.

Specific phobias are irrational fears that are related to certain situations or objects, social phobias

are an anxiety disorder where one is afraid of social settings or situations and agoraphobias are

fears of crowded or small spaces. The most common of the three types of phobias is specific

phobias. While they are irrational many people have at least one phobia and it is usually caused

by fear conditioning. Fear conditioning is caused when one is conditioned through an event to

associate pain, a loud noise, or fright with a stimulus. In the Little Albert experiment an infant

was conditioned to fear white rats because every time he was introduced to one John Watson, the

man who conducted the experiment, would hit a metal bar. The infant associated the loud noise

of the bar with the rat, which caused him to become afraid of the rat. The child was conditioned

to fear the rat just as many people are conditioned to fear spiders, snakes, or other things because

of traumatic experiences.

Fear keeps us safe and causes us to evolve. Whether or not our fears are rational or

irrational they prevent us from doing things that could harm us. The brain processes and relays
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information in a matter of seconds to make sure that there are no threats that could hurt us.

Whether or not is was causes by a phobia or a quick scare everyone has been frightened at least

once in their life. Fear is a natural reaction to a stimulus to make sure that it does not pose a

potential threat. Although fear might cause your muscles to become stiff or your heart rate to

speed up, your brain is just trying to make sure that you are not in danger.

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