Risk assessment: at the interface of cognition and emotion

Risk Assessment (RA) is a core component of the defense survival system. Recent studies indicate substantial parallels between eliciting stimuli, behaviors, and functional outcomes for RA in animal models and people, and a rapidly growing literature suggests that some exaggerated or aberrant RA behaviors may be transdiagnostic components of anxiety and depressive disorders. Although the subcortical components of defense systems have been well mapped, RA, standing at the ‘interface of cognition and emotion’, appears to involve a more extensive cortical representation than other specific defenses. Recent analyses of metanetworks potentially interacting with the subcortical defense systems suggest that the Default Mode Network and the Salience Network may be strongly involved in RA.