Behavioural neuroscience: Genes and the anxious brain.

The article discusses research on the mediation of trait anxiety through genetic effects on the activity of brain regions. Blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol and behaviours of monkeys were examined which resulted in high anxiety being displayed by some of the specie and others with less. Brain activity in anxious monkeys is most prominently higher in two key signaling structures for negative emotion, the amygdala, and the anterior hippocampus.