Topic: innate fear of heights

Accurate decision-making under imminent threat is critical to survival. However, arousal states, regulated by the neuromodulator norepinephrine, can cause both attentiveness and anxiety. Thus, adaptive decision making that scales with threat valence is crucial. To study proper decision-making under threat and the role of norepinephrine, we developed a novel task in which mice descend from a height toward an illusion of safe and unsafe visual cues. This virtual stimulus --- where there is a mismatch between actual safety and perceived safety --- relies on the evolutionarily conserved, innate fe