Cortical area · one in each half of the brain
Rostral anterior cingulate cortex
Also called Rostral ACC, Pregenual and subgenual cingulate
The emotional front of the cingulate: calming fear and steadying your mood.
The rostral anterior cingulate is the very front of the cingulate belt, curving around the front end of the corpus callosum. It is a key area for handling emotions: it helps calm fear, set your mood, and adjust your heart rate and stress response. It is closely linked to depression, and it helps explain how the expectation of relief, like a placebo, can truly ease pain.
Where it is
On the inner surface of the frontal lobe, deep between the two halves of the brain, wrapping around the front curve of the corpus callosum, roughly behind the middle of your forehead.
What it does
Calming fear
It helps quiet the amygdala once something frightening turns out to be safe.
Setting your mood
It helps set your emotional tone, and its activity is often altered in depression.
Body responses
It helps adjust heart rate, blood pressure and sweating to match your emotional state.
Pain relief from belief
It is part of the system that lets expectation, such as the placebo effect, reduce pain.
Emotional distractions
It helps you stay on task when emotions pull at you, such as when you see an upsetting image.
Think of it as a thermostat for your emotions: it senses when feelings run too hot or too cold and nudges them back toward comfortable.
Works with
- AmygdalaIt sends calming signals to the amygdala and receives its alarm signals in return.
- Medial orbitofrontal cortexIts neighbor below works with it on value, mood and emotional decisions.
- HypothalamusThrough the hypothalamus it influences stress hormones and body responses.
- Nucleus accumbensIt links with this reward hub to shape motivation and pleasure.
- Raphe nucleiIt receives serotonin from the raphe nuclei and can influence their activity in return, a link important for mood.
When it goes wrong
Depression
The area just below its front curve, called the subgenual cingulate, is often overactive in severe depression. Researchers have tested deep brain stimulation there for depression that resists other treatments, with mixed but encouraging results.
PTSD and anxiety
In PTSD, the frontal areas that normally help calm fear, including this region, may work less well, making it harder to learn that reminders of a trauma are now safe.
For learning only, not medical advice. If you have a health concern, talk to a doctor.
Surprising facts
- Brain scans show that a fake painkiller people believe in can calm pain responses in areas such as the front of the cingulate, partly by releasing the brain's own opioid chemicals.
Where the name comes from
"Rostral" comes from the Latin "rostrum", meaning beak, and means toward the front. "Anterior" comes from the Latin "ante", meaning before or in front, and "cingulate" comes from "cingulum", a belt.
Quick quiz
3 questions. Your answers are saved and come back in your daily review.
Which of these is a job of the rostral anterior cingulate?
Show the answer
Calming fear. It helps quiet the amygdala once something frightening turns out to be safe.
Calming fear. It helps quiet the amygdala once something frightening turns out to be safe.
The rostral anterior cingulate is part of which larger structure?
Show the answer
Cingulate cortex. It belongs to the cingulate cortex.
Cingulate cortex. It belongs to the cingulate cortex.
Which part fits this description? "Like a thermostat for your emotions: it senses when feelings run too hot or too cold and nudges them back toward comfortable."
Show the answer
Rostral anterior cingulate. It is the rostral anterior cingulate. The emotional front of the cingulate: calming fear and steadying your mood.
Rostral anterior cingulate. It is the rostral anterior cingulate. The emotional front of the cingulate: calming fear and steadying your mood.
These parts now come back in your daily review, just before you would forget them.
Practice it and its neighbors in 3DSources
- 13.4 Mood and Emotional Disorders Associated with Depression, OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience
- 9.4 Pain Relief, OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience
- Dissociable Neural Systems Resolve Conflict from Emotional versus Nonemotional Distracters, Cerebral Cortex (Oxford Academic)
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