title: The slippery slope of fear.
abstract: 'Fear' is used scientifically in two ways, which causes confusion: it refers to conscious feelings and to behavioral and physiological responses. Restricting the use of 'fear' to denote feelings and using 'threat-induced defensive reactions' for the responses would help avoid misunderstandings about the brain mechanisms involved.
authors.affiliation: Center for Neural Science, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA. ledoux@cns.nyu.edu
authors.forename: Joseph E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: LeDoux
mesh_terms: D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003243:Consciousness; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009626:Terminology as Topic