The article "The contextual brain: implications for fear conditioning, extinction and psychopathology" by Maren, Phan, and Liberzon reviews the role of the brain in processing contextual information, particularly in fear conditioning and extinction. Context is defined broadly as the internal and external backdrop against which psychological processes operate, including spatial, temporal, interoceptive, cognitive, and social contexts. The authors highlight the importance of the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in encoding and retrieving context-related memories, with the hippocampus playing a crucial role in spatial context encoding and the mPFC in spatial context retrieval. Studies in animals and humans have shown that lesions or impairments in these brain regions can lead to deficits in contextual fear conditioning and extinction, which have clinical implications for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, and substance abuse disorders. The article also discusses the neural mechanisms underlying contextual control of fear expression, extinction, and the context-dependent expression of fear after extinction. Finally, it explores the implications of impaired contextual processing in various psychiatric disorders, emphasizing the need for further research to understand the neural circuits involved in normal and pathological contexts.The article "The contextual brain: implications for fear conditioning, extinction and psychopathology" by Maren, Phan, and Liberzon reviews the role of the brain in processing contextual information, particularly in fear conditioning and extinction. Context is defined broadly as the internal and external backdrop against which psychological processes operate, including spatial, temporal, interoceptive, cognitive, and social contexts. The authors highlight the importance of the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in encoding and retrieving context-related memories, with the hippocampus playing a crucial role in spatial context encoding and the mPFC in spatial context retrieval. Studies in animals and humans have shown that lesions or impairments in these brain regions can lead to deficits in contextual fear conditioning and extinction, which have clinical implications for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, and substance abuse disorders. The article also discusses the neural mechanisms underlying contextual control of fear expression, extinction, and the context-dependent expression of fear after extinction. Finally, it explores the implications of impaired contextual processing in various psychiatric disorders, emphasizing the need for further research to understand the neural circuits involved in normal and pathological contexts.