How Emotion Affects Action.

During high-stress situations some athletes experience a rapid decline in performance under pressure, known as "choking." Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, Calif., have uncovered what might be behind the phenomenon: one-way signals from the brain's emotion circuit to the movement circuit. The study, published in eLife, could lead to new strategies for treating disorders with disrupted movement--such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and depression--along with aiding in recovery from spinal cord injuries or physical performance under pressure.

"This finding is very exciting as it is the first time that a comprehensive circuit mechanism has been found showing how emotional states can influence movement through connections in an area of the brain called the basal ganglia, a region involved in guiding behavior," says senior author Xin Jin, associate professor of molecular neurobiology. "We did not previously know much about this pathway, so it brings about a whole new paradigm for examining psychiatric disorders as well as spinal cord injury."

It previously was believed that the brain's emotion and movement loops worked like parallel closed circuits, operating...