Proper coordination of organ function with behavioral actions is crucial for survival. In response to an emerging threat, energy must be rapidly distributed to the muscles to ensure rapid flight. When the body is overtaxed, an animal may shut off all but the most crucial behaviors. This bidirectional balance of motor programs with the internal body state is mediated by complex interactions between the autonomic and central nervous systems. To untangle these interactions, we utilize the larval zebrafish by taking advantage of its optical transparency and small size to combine brain-wide imaging with behavioral and cardiac recordings. We find that exposure to threats across visual and chemical modalities causes a rapid attempt to escape followed by a 1-3 minute period of increased heart rate. During this tachycardia, the animal is less responsive to neutral stimuli such as the optomotor response. We consider this period a combined visceral-behavioral state. During this period, calcium imaging shows that both the sensory and motor arms of the autonomic nervous system are strongly active indicating a bidirectional flow of information between the body and brain. Further, regions across the brain - such as the preoptic area, periaqueductal gray, habenula, among others, show similar activity that mirrors heart rate. To ascertain the roles of these regions as either "body-controlling" or "body-listening" we use a combination of pharmacological, optogenetic, and anatomical methods - including recently generated ultrastructural data from electron microscopy.