In discerning a correlation between the activity of a neural circuit and the unconscious and conscious perception of a threat, we are beginning to delineate the neural correlate of an emotion—fear. That description might well lead us to a scientific explanation of consciously perceived fear. It might give us an approximation of how neural events give rise to a mental event that enters our awareness. Thus, a half century after I left psychoanalysis for the biology of mind, the new biology of mind is getting ready to tackle some of the issues central to psychoanalysis and consciousness.
