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Ambiguity and anxiety: when a glass half full is empty

Nature Neuroscience volume 10, pages 807–808 (2007)Cite this article

Humans and other animals use environmental cues to evaluate sources of danger and to react appropriately. A new study reports that mice lacking the serotonin 1a receptor overreact to ambiguous predictors of aversive events, whereas they respond normally to unambiguous predictors, illuminating the neural bases of contingency learning.

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Figure 1: Humans and other animals can accurately estimate the probability of danger from their experience of specific environments or cues and use this information to respond appropriately.

Ann Thompson

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Karim Nader is at the Psychology Department, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1B1. karim.nader@mcgill.ca,

    Karim Nader

  2. Bernard Balleine is at the Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1563, USA.,

    Bernard Balleine

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  1. Karim Nader
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  2. Bernard Balleine
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Nader, K., Balleine, B. Ambiguity and anxiety: when a glass half full is empty. Nat Neurosci 10, 807–808 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0707-807

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