A team of Emory neuroscientists, led by Gregory Berns MD, Phd, have identified the part of the brain activated during the experience of dread. The research was conducted as part of a program in neuroeconomcs, a new field that applies neurology to economic questions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the team examined the brains of participants while delivering a series of 96 low voltage shocks of varying frequency and intensity to their feet. Having first screened the participants for their pain thresholds, before each shock they they told them how strong it would be (in % of threshold), and offered the choice between more pain sooner or less pain later. Most preferred to speed up the process at least a little, "mild dreaders," while 28% were willing to take more pain just to avoid waiting, termed "extreme dreaders." The degree to which people opted for more voltage sooner, seems to indicate the dread they felt from waiting.

The brain scans showed localized activity in areas associated with pain, as well as attention, which reflects that dread is more than fear or anxiety, feelings found in other parts of the brain. Further, the extreme dreaders had more attentional activity, which was seen much earlier compared the mild dreaders. "Taken together, the anatomical locations of dread responses suggest that the subjective experience of dread that ultimately drives an individual’s behavior comes from the attention devoted to the expected physical response, and not simply a fear or anxiety response," explains Dr. Berns. So, it is not so much the amount of pain a person can bear, as how attentively the pain is experienced, that determines the amount of dread produced. An extremely attentive person, then, may have a more dreadful life than someone who is abscent-minded, who sometimes might not even notice being hurt. While attentiveness has its benifits, taken to an extreme it can be paralyzing. Take Dostoyevsky’s underground man, whose hyper-attention to the most minute social gestures led him to live in isolation on the fringes of society, incapable of normal interaction. The study, supported by the National Institutes of Drug Abuse (NIDA), was published in the May 5 issue of Science.

Neurobiology of dread gives scientists clues about human decision making, Emory.edu