Figure 2.

Schematic of known distinct and overlapping stress circuits. Illustration of the sagittal brain section, marking regions known to show change in activity during experience of: stress (blue), pain (yellow) or both stress and pain (green). Blunt arrowheads indicate inhibition of, while sharp arrowheads indicate stimulation of the target region by the region of arrow origin and sharp arrowheads indicate stimulation. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VmPFC) receives input from pain- and stress-encoding regions, and has outputs in both pain and stress pathways. dACC, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; NAc, nucleus accumbens; Hpc, hippocampus; Thal, thalamus; LC, locus coeruleus; PAG, periaqueductal gray.