Israeli scientists decided to find in the brain neural mechanisms responsible for courage. For the study, the Weizmann Institute of Science specialists developed an experiment in which participants had to choose whether to take the object closer or further from the snakes. Their brains were scanned by functional magnetic resonance.

If the snake was closer, people experienced high somatic excitement, accompanied by low subjective fear or vice versa, high subjective fear with low somatic excitement. Examination of the brain by tomography showed that activity in the brain of the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex is positively associated with a level of subjective fear when it is necessary to act courageously, but not in choosing, whether to succumb to fear. In addition, the activity in a number of temporal structures of the proportion of the brain was reduced when the level of fear increased, but the participants nevertheless decided to overcome their fear of snakes.

The authors of the experiment assert that the results point to brain processes that allow us to carry out a voluntary action opposite to the feeling of fear, namely, to show courage. It is brain activity in the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex that is responsible for fearlessness and courage, neurologists believe.

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