Why emotions are attention-getters

Strong, direct wiring in brain connects feelings with focus

Nerve cells from the brain’s emotion hub talk directly to a region that doles out attention, a study of monkeys shows. The connection, described in the April 11 Journal of Neuroscience, may help explain how people automatically focus on emotional events.

EMOTIONAL URGENCY In a rhesus monkey’s brain, nerve cells send messages from the emotion-processing amygdala (green) to a region that doles out attention, the thalamic reticular nucleus (blue).