Media coverage: Being anxious could be good for you -- in a crisis

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In their research article – Anxiety dissociates the adaptive functions of sensory and motor response enhancements to social threats– El Zein et al. find that the brain devotes more processing resources to social situations that signal threat than to those that are benign.

For the first time, specific regions of the brain have been identified to be involved in the apparent "sixth sense" that we have for danger. The human brain is able to detect social threats in these regions in a fast, automatic fashion, within just 200 milliseconds.

The researchers managed to identify what it is that makes a person particularly threatening. They found that the direction in which a person is looking is key to enhancing our sensitivity to their emotions. Anger paired with a direct gaze produces a response in the brain in 200 milliseconds, faster than if the angry person is looking elsewhere.

The team measured electrical signals in the brains of 24 volunteers. These signals were analysed while the volunteers were asked to decide whether digitally altered faces expressed anger or fear. Some faces displayed exactly the same expression, but the direction of their gaze was altered. A total of 1,080 trials were carried out.

"In contrast to previous work, our findings demonstrate that the brain devotes more processing resources to negative emotions that signal threat, rather than to any display of negative emotion," says lead author Marwa El Zein from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.

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