New Publication on Fear Conditioning ENIGMA Fear Conditioning Article just published in Nature Communications

23 August 2025: Ever wondered how your brain learns to anticipate negative events?

Our collaborators in Barcelona just published a groundbreaking mega-analysis of harmonized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 2199 individuals across nine countries, to which we contributed. This study, conducted within the ENIGMA consortium, offers insights into the brain areas active during Pavlovian fear conditioning. This fundamental learning process consistently engages brain areas commonly referred to “central autonomic–interoceptive” or “salience” network. The study, which included both healthy individuals and those with anxiety-related or depressive disorders, reveals that while the brain areas active during fear conditioning are highly generalizable at the population level, significant variability arises from two key factors: task design and clinical status. The study authors thus demonstrate that various task variables strongly modulate brain activity in these fear-related regions.

Furthermore, brain activation patterns differ notably between healthy individuals and those with disorders, with distinct profiles emerging for specific conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This comprehensive investigation underscores the impact of methodological diversity on results in fear learning studies, and going forward provides a much clearer picture of how fear is processed in the brain, both typically and in the context of mental health conditions.

Read the open-access article here.

Miquel Fullana (Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer & Institute of Neurosciences, Hospital Clínic, Barcelona, Spain) is leader of the sub-project 'Fear Conditioning' at the consortium. Learn more the ENIGMA-Anxiety working group here.