Freezing is an evolutionarily preserved defensive behavior, characterized by immobility and heart rate deceleration, which is thought to promote visual perception. Rapid perceptual assessment of threat is crucial in life-threatening situations; for example, when policemen need to make split-second decisions about the use of deadly force. Here, we hypothesized that freezing is specifically associated with better perception of rapidly processed coarse, low-spatial frequency (LSF) features. We used a visual discrimination task in which participants determined the orientation of LSF and high-spatial frequency (HSF) gratings under threat of shock and safe conditions. As predicted, threat anticipation improved perception of LSF at the expense of HSF gratings. Crucially, stronger decrease in heart rate, a parasympathetic physiological index of freezing, was linked to better perception of LSF. These results provide empirical evidence for the comobilization of physiological and perceptual processes, which may play an important role in decision making under acute stress.

Objective Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a heritable neuropsychiatric disorder associated with abnormal reward processing. Limited and inconsistent data exist about the neural mechanisms underlying this abnormality. Furthermore, it is unknown whether reward processing is abnormal in unaffected siblings of participants with ADHD. Method We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain responses during reward anticipation and receipt with an adapted monetary incentive delay task in a large sample of adolescents and young adults with ADHD (n=150), their unaffected siblings (n=92), and control participants (n=108), all of the same age. Results Participants with ADHD showed, relative to control participants, increased responses in the anterior cingulate, anterior frontal cortex, and cerebellum during reward anticipation, and in the orbitofrontal, occipital cortex, and ventral striatum during reward receipt. Responses of unaffected siblings were increased in these regions as well, except for the cerebellum during anticipation and the orbitofrontal cortex during receipt. Conclusion ADHD in adolescents and young adults is associated with enhanced neural responses in frontostriatal circuitry to anticipation and receipt of reward. The findings support models emphasizing aberrant reward processing in ADHD and suggest that processing of reward is subject to familial influences. Future studies using standard monetary incentive delay task parameters have to replicate our findings.

An adaptive response to threat requires optimized detection of critical sensory cues. This optimization is thought to be aided by freezing - an evolutionarily preserved defensive state of immobility characterized by parasympathetically mediated fear bradycardia and regulated by the amygdala-periaqueductal grey (PAG) circuit. Behavioral observations in humans and animals have suggested that freezing is also a state of enhanced visual sensitivity, particularly for coarse visual information, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. We induced a freezing-like state in healthy volunteers using threat of electrical shock and measured threat-related changes in both stimulus-independent (baseline) and stimulus-evoked visuocortical activity to low-vs. high-spatial frequency gratings, using functional MRI. As measuring immobility is not feasible in MRI environments, we used fear bradycardia and amygdala-PAG coupling in inferring a freezing-like state. An independent functional localizer and retinotopic mapping were used to assess the retinotopic specificity of visuocortical modulations. We found a threat-induced increase in baseline (stimulus-independent) visuocortical activity that was retinotopically nonspecific, which was accompanied by increased connectivity with the amygdala. A positive correlation between visuocortical activity and fear bradycardia (while controlling for sympathetic activation), and a concomitant increase in amygdala-PAG connectivity, confirmed the specificity of these findings for the parasympathetically dominated freezing-like state. Visuocortical responses to gratings were retinotopically specific, but did not differ between threat and safe conditions across participants. However, individuals who exhibited better discrimination of low-spatial frequency stimuli showed reduced stimulus-evoked V1 responses under threat. Our findings suggest that a defensive state of freezing involves an integration of preparatory defensive and perceptual changes which may be regulated by a common mechanism involving the amygdala.

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Humans are exposed to environmental and economic threats that can profoundly affect individual survival and group functioning. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that threat exposure can increase collective action, the effects of threat on decision-making have been mainly investigated at the individual level. Here we examine how threat exposure and concomitant physiological responses modulate cooperation in small groups. Individuals ( N = 105, ages 18–34 years) in groups of three were exposed to threat of electric shocks while deciding how much to contribute to a public good. Threat of shock induced a state of physiological freezing and, compared with no-threat conditions, reduced free riding and enabled groups to maintain higher cooperation over time. Exploratory analyses revealed that more cooperative responses under threat were driven by stronger baseline prosociality, suggesting that habitual prosociality is reinforced under threat. The current results support the view that human groups respond to outside threat with increased cooperation.