Here’s why you ‘freeze’ when you’re scared

Here’s why you ‘freeze’ when you’re scared
The reason why we 'freeze' is because of strong emotional stress.

They also had more difficulty in recognising emotions, and particularly angry faces. The anxious children, plus controls, were then followed into adolescence. At the ages of 14-15 they were tested again to see if signs of social anxiety had developed.  The researchers also used functional MRI brain scans to test how the teenage brains responded to angry facial expressions. ‘We found that when presented with an angry face the brain of socially anxious adolescents showed increased activity in the amygdala, which is the brain area concerned with emotions, memory and how we respond to threats,’ Muzzarelli said. ‘Surprisingly, we also found this produced inhibition of some motor areas of the brain, the premotor cortex. This is an area which ‘prepares the body for action’, and for specific movements,’ she noted.  The findings were presented at the ongoing European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) conference in Vienna, Austria. (Read: 7 ways to help a friend or family member who lives with anxiety)

Source: IANS

Image source: Shutterstock

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