But the hormonal cascade engineered by the amygdala and the BNST, it turns out, is only one piece of the puzzle. In recent years, new techniques have come online that have allowed researchers to begin to trace the "circuits" of the brain in even greater detail and to better understand how disparate parts of the brain interact—creating both widespread excitement and the sense that there is a lot more to learn. Since 2011, Tye, of the Salk Institute, has been using genetically-modified light-sensitive proteins to turn neurons on and off, and systematically tracing the connections between different parts of the brain involved in fear and anxiety.
但是，由杏仁核和終紋床核設計的激素級聯只是這個謎題的一部分。近年來，新技術已經上線，這使得研究人員能夠開始更詳細地追蹤大腦的“回路”，并更好地理解大腦不同部分是如何相互作用的——這既讓人興奮，也讓人覺得還有很多東西要學。自2011年以來，索爾克研究所的泰伊一直在使用基因改良的光敏蛋白來開啟和關閉神經元，并系統地追蹤大腦中涉及恐懼和焦慮的不同部分之間的聯系。
Her work has added to a growing body of evidence that brain structures other than the amygdala and BNST play a role in anxiety. These include the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the cingulate gyrus and a number of other areas.
越來越多的證據表明，除了杏仁核和終紋床核外，大腦結構也在焦慮中發揮作用。這些區域包括前額皮質、海馬體、扣帶回和其他一些區域。
"If you think of an analogy of the brain being like the world, and neurons being like people, and you want to understand how information is propagated across the world, you would say, 'yeah, it's important to know where someone lives, I guess,'" she explains. "But it's way more important to know what they're saying, who they're saying it to, who's listening and how do the people that are listening respond? How are those messages sent and filtered to different corners of the brain?"
“如果你把大腦比作世界，把神經元比作人，你想了解信息是如何在世界各地傳播的，那么你會說，‘是的，我想知道某人住在哪里是很重要的，”她解釋道。“但更重要的是要知道他們在說什么，他們在對誰說，誰在聽，聽的人如何回應？這些信息是如何被發送并過濾到大腦的不同角落的？”
These findings make the focus on the amygdala and even the BNST seem outdated. LeDoux, the scientist many credit with establishing the importance of the amygdala, is quick to agree. Like Nixon in China, LeDoux has been proselytizing his colleagues to pay more attention to the contributions of the higher-order structures in the anxiety circuit. What parts of the brain the amygdala and BNST are "talking to" may eventually prove crucial in finding more effective ways of treating anxiety.
這些發現使得對杏仁核甚至終紋床核的關注顯得過時了。
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