<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/42704272.cms" />

	<span>Do you feel frightened on seeing threatening images? As per a study published in the journal Brain and Cognition, researchers from the Center for </span>BrainHealth<span> at the <keyword id="1931385" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="University-of-Texas-in-Dallas">University of Texas in Dallas</keyword> have mapped brain activity to illustrate how fear arises when someone is exposed to such pictures.</span>
<br /><br />

	Scientists analysed previous animal and human research to find an electrophysiological marker for threat in the brain. 
<br /><br /> According to <keyword id="635318" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="John-Hart">John Hart</keyword>, <keyword id="2520217" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Medical-Science-Director">Medical Science Director</keyword> at the <keyword id="2521434" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Center-for-BrainHealth">Center for BrainHealth</keyword>, "We are trying to find where thought exists in the mind," said John Hart, Medical Science Director at the Center for BrainHealth. We know that groups of neurons firing on and off create a frequency and pattern that tell other areas of the brain what to do. By identifying these rhythms, we can correlate them with a cognitive unit such as fear." <br /><br />

	Utilising electroencephalography (EEG), the research team led by Hart identified theta and beta wave activity that signifies the brain's reaction to visually threatening images. 
<br /><br /> "We have known for a long time that the brain prioritises threatening information over other cognitive processes," said <keyword id="2520218" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Bambi-DeLaRosa">Bambi DeLaRosa</keyword>, lead author of the study. <br /><br />

	"These findings show us how this happens. Theta wave activity starts in the back of the brain, in it's fear center — the amygdala — and then interacts with brain's memory center — the hippocampus — before travelling to the frontal lobe where thought processing areas are engaged. At the same time, beta wave activity indicates that the motor cortex is revving up in case the feet need to move to avoid the perceived threat," said DeLaRosa. 
<br /><br />

	In order to conduct the study, 26 adults (19 female, 7 male) falling in the age bracket of 19-30 were shown 224 randomised images that were either unidentifiably scrambled or real pictures. Real pictures were separated into two categories: threatening (weapons, combat, nature or animals) and non-threatening (pleasant situations, food, nature or animals). 
<br /><br />

	While wearing an EEG cap, participants were asked to press a button with their right index finger for real items and another button with their right middle finger for nonreal/scrambled items. Shorter response times were recorded for scrambled images than the real images. There was no difference in reaction time for threatening versus non-threatening images. 
<br /><br />

	The results of the study showed that threatening images evoked an early increase in theta activity in the occipital lobe, the area in the brain where visual information is processed. This was followed by a later increase in theta power in the frontal lobe, the area of brain where higher mental functions such as thinking, decision-making and planning occur. 
<br /><br />

	So know you the reason that why you feel frightened on seeing threatening images.<br />
	(Image: Thinkstock)


Study Reveals How Fear Arises On Seeing Scary Images

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/57248833.cms" />Having a good <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=memory&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">memory</a> is important at work. Even though there are planners, alarms and alerts to remind you of your important tasks, it is also important to memorise deadlines, presentations, name of colleagues, clients, etc. This not only will keep your brain active and less dependent on external sources, you will also feel empowered and confident.<br />
<br />
Boosting your memory is also good for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=productivity&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">productivity</a>, brain health and succeeding in life. According to science, you have to increase your brain activity in order to be a highly productive, decision-maker, innovator, strategist, etc.<br />
<br />
As per Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D., founder of Center for BrainHealth, “Neglecting your cognitive health and allowing your brain to lose its mental edge with routine [life activities] rather than innovative thinking has unnecessary and deleterious economic, social and personal ramifications.”<br />
<br /> However, scientists don’t know how much the brain can store but they surely know <keyword id="3502477" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="how-to-boost-memory">how to boost memory</keyword> to become highly successful.<br />
<br /> Here are 6 science-backed <keyword id="3440720" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="tips-to-boost-memory">tips to boost memory</keyword> and become<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=successful&amp;sortorder=effectivedate"> highly successful</a>

6
science-backed tips to boost your memory and become highly successful

<p dir="ltr"></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5462346deab8eacc7ebca639-1200-924/girl-smoking-marijuana-weed-6.jpg" alt="girl smoking marijuana weed" border="0"><p class="source"><span>Jason Redmond/Reuters</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Marijuana's official designation as a <a href="http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml">Schedule 1 drug</a> - something with "no accepted medical use" - means it is pretty tough to study.</p><p>Yet numerous anecdotal reports, as well as some studies, have linked marijuana with several purported health benefits, from pain relief to helping with certain forms of epilepsy.</p><p>Still, experts say more rigorous scientific analyses are needed. Use of marijuana, a psychoactive drug, can come with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/physical-and-mental-effects-of-marijuana-2013-4">risks</a>, especially in people who may be prone to addiction or mental illness.&#xa0;</p><p>And now for the first time, researchers have found a link between daily, decade-long weed use&#xa0;and a difference in how&#xa0;<span>the brain&#xa0;processes&#xa0;reward.&#xa0;</span></p><h2><span>Addiction and the brain</span></h2><p><span>For years, researchers have suggested that such a link exists - and if it does, that it could play a powerful role in addiction. An important part of this line of thought is that addicts, far from amoral&#xa0;individuals incapable of making intelligent decisions,&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maia-szalavitz-unbroken-brain-treating-addiction-as-a-learning-disorder-2016-4">simply respond differently to drugs</a> - neurologically, psychologically, physiologically - than people who are not addicted. </span></p><p><span>And this&#xa0;response&#xa0;is probably the result of many factors outside the person's control, including&#xa0;genetics, behavior, and&#xa0;environment.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57583fca91058424008c7868-1493/marijuana.jpg" alt="marijuana" data-mce-source="Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/File" data-mce-caption="Marijuana is harvested in Davenport, Calif., in In this Oct. 12, 2010 file photo. Marijuana is now the No. 1 cash crop in California."><p class="source"><span>Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP/File</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>So for&#xa0;their <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.23250/full">study</a>, published on Wednesday in the journal Brain Mapping, researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas, Dallas took a look at the brains of&#xa0;<span>53 daily, long-term pot&#xa0;users (14 of whom met the&#xa0;<span>American Psychiatric Association's criteria for addiction)&#xa0;</span>and 68 people who'd&#xa0;never&#xa0;used the drug daily. Then the researchers&#xa0;showed them&#xa0;with a series of objects meant to test their reward response.&#xa0;</span></span><span><span>The&#xa0;objects included&#xa0;one type of fruit (the "natural cue"), a pencil (the "neutral cue"), and either a bong, a pipe, or a joint (the "cannabis cue"), depending on which one they said they&#xa0;preferred.</span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>Importantly, this study did not look at so-called "recreational users"&#xa0;- those&#xa0;who use the drug every&#xa0;few weeks or months. Instead, it focused on people who used the drug every day for an average of 12 years, several of whom met the criteria for being addicted to the drug and many of whom displayed some signs of past or present problems with weed.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>Why? Because the researchers wanted to tease out how&#xa0;changes to the&#xa0;brain's reward pathway might affect who used the everyday for years&#xa0;- and more importantly, why.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span>Not surprisingly, when&#xa0;the&#xa0;chronic users were presented with either the bong, pipe, or joint, they displayed a stronger response in several&#xa0;parts of their brain linked with reward than they did when they were shown the&#xa0;natural&#xa0;fruit cues. In contrast, the non-users did not show a<span>&#xa0;significantly greater response to&#xa0;either the weed or fruit cues, and some parts of their brains showed a greater response to the fruit than to the bong, pipe, or joint.</span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>"This study shows that marijuana disrupts the natural reward circuitry of the brain, making marijuana highly salient to those who use it heavily," Dr. Francesca Filbey, the director of Cognitive Neuroscience Research in Addictive Disorders at the Center for BrainHealth and an associate professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, said in a <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160607151239.htm">press release</a>. </span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>"In essence, these brain alterations could be a marker of transition from recreational marijuana use to problematic use," she added.</span></span></span></span></p><h2><span><span><span><span>Marijuana&#xa0;and the brain</span></span></span></span></h2><p><span><span><span><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54625d2a6bb3f7ca3c1952ee-705-672/ofc-3.jpg" alt="OFC.JPG" border="0"><p class="caption">The orbitofrontal cortex, highlighted in green.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>For&#xa0;another <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/11/05/1415297111.abstract">2014 study</a>&#xa0;also by Dr. Filbey, she and her team found that, compared with people who didn't&#xa0;use pot, long-term, heavy users&#xa0;tend to have a smaller orbitofrontal cortex, a brain region critical for processing emotions and making decisions. </span></span></span></span></p><p><span><span><span><span>And, interestingly enough, the heavy users&#xa0;also appeared to have more cross-brain connections. Scientists think regular users may develop these links&#xa0;as a means of compensating for the difference in size.&#xa0;The regular pot users&#xa0;also&#xa0;had lower IQ scores overall when compared to the people who didn't use the drug.</span></span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To arrive at their results - one of the first comprehensive, three-dimensional pictures of the brains of adults who'd smoked weed at least four times a week, often multiple times a day, for years - the researchers&#xa0;used a combination of MRI-based brain scans.&#xa0;</span></p><p dir="ltr"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Still, that study&#xa0;<span>did not show that chronic weed use&#xa0;</span><em>caused</em><span>&#xa0;certain regions of the brain to shrink or that pot use <em>caused</em> lower IQ scores; it simply showed a relationship among those factors.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"We cannot honestly say that that is what's happening here,"&#xa0;<span>Filbey <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-marijuana-use-effects-on-the-brain-2014-11">told Business Insider in 2014</a>.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr"><span>Similarly, the latest study does not show that chronic pot use causes a change in the brain's reward response; the reverse could also be true, that the changed reward response influenced&#xa0;the chronic pot use.</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/medical-benefits-of-marijuana-2016-4">7 surprising medical benefits of marijuana</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="J2cDYzMTE6Ipz-Ou9rQ5Sajidxk8IB_w" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'J2cDYzMTE6Ipz-Ou9rQ5Sajidxk8IB_w',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Scientists found something strange when they looked at the brains of stoners

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/52cd6724eab8ea232c752994-800-540/1youve-just-seen-what-it-takes-to-be-in-the-navys-elite-boat-crew.jpg" border="0" alt="seal team 6"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/Joe Skipper</span></p><p class="caption">Members of SEAL Team 6</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the launching of the War on Terror, the US has drastically expanded the role of special operators within the military.</p><p>Among the operators playing an oversized role, SEAL Team 6 - made particularly famous for the Osama bin Laden raid - has played critical roles in operations ranging from Afghanistan to Iraq to Somalia. </p><p>However, this outsized role within the US war machine has contributed to fatigue and serious traumatic injuries within the SEAL Team 6, an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/world/asia/the-secret-history-of-seal-team-6.html">in depth report</a> on the role of the SEAL Team 6 by The New York Times finds. </p><p>"Your body is trashed," a recently retired SEAL Team 6 operator <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/world/asia/the-secret-history-of-seal-team-6.html">told</a> the Times. "Your brain is trashed."</p><p>On the whole, special operators have "been involved in tens of thousands of missions and operations in multiple geographic theaters [since September 11], and consistently uphold the highest standards required of the U.S. Armed Forces," US Special Operations Command <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/world/asia/the-secret-history-of-seal-team-6.html">told</a> the Times. </p><p class="p1">One former operator told the Times that SEAL Team 6 served as "utility infielders with guns."</p><p>The focus on special operations teams and drone strikes is part and parcel of President Obama's light footprint strategy of counter-terrorism which believes in having US allies, backed and trained by Special Operations Command, playing the key role in security operations.</p><p><span>"They have become sort of a 1-800 number anytime somebody wants something done," f<span>ormer Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat and a member of the SEALs during the Vietnam War, told the Times.</span></span></p><p><span><span>Furthermore, America's elite warriors are not ones to complain.</span></span></p><p>"SEALs are a lot like N.F.L. guys: They never want to say 'I am taking myself out of the lineup,'" Dr. John Hart, the director of the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas, which has treated SEALs, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/world/asia/the-secret-history-of-seal-team-6.html">told</a> the Times. </p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"If they send guys back in who already have the effects of a concussion, they are constantly adding a dose of a hit to an existing brain condition. The brain needs sufficient time to heal."</span></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">SEAL Team 6 has suffered more causalities since September 11 than in the rest of its history, the Times notes. </span></p><p>The increasing reach of US special forces since 9/11 has raised issues <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-jsoc-in-dirty-wars-2013-4">about the "dark side" of secret missions in foreign countries</a>.</p><h3><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/world/asia/the-secret-history-of-seal-team-6.html">Check out The Time's full report»</a></h3>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ian-bremmer-vladimir-putin-most-powerful-man-world-2015-5">Why Putin is the most powerful man in the world </a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RhNTFkdTovrJg1rP-s9ZqAiCXm6cMBEh" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'RhNTFkdTovrJg1rP-s9ZqAiCXm6cMBEh',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

You Searched For "Center for BrainHealth" and got 4 results

Study Reveals How Fear Arises On Seeing Scary Images

BI India Bureau

6 science-backed tips to boost your memory and become highly successful

Akanksha Jain

Scientists found something strange when they looked at the brains of stoners

Erin Brodwin

Former US Navy SEALs explain how the US war machine wore them out

Jeremy Bender