Further to my in text comment…
Animal researchers tend to blur the functional line between anxiety and fear. Anxiety is the tiger might be around here somewhere waiting to pounce. Fear is the tiger is pouncing right now. Anticipation, dread, wariness are all variations on an organism preparing for the possibility of harm. That is why “threat” is apropos. Anticipation recruits fear circuitry and neurotransmitters but these fear components are not the sole processes occurring during this threat-not-yet-realized phase. When the tiger is upon, it is full fear, completely right now, with no consideration of past and future.
Why is this distinction useful? Well, our primary purpose with animal studies is to gain insight into the human condition in ways currently unavailable to human research. Humanity does not have problems with fear, we have problems with anxiety. Fear is ancient, what we share with reptiles, and thus is not contextual, not contingent on environmental conditions or socialization. Fear is existential with a singular purpose of survival. Anxiety on the other hand is almost entirely contextual ( noises paired with potential shocks). If you really want to make a human or animal anxious, pair the sound intermittently. It might happen. If it happens every time, then it is relatively simple for an organism to adapt. If only sometimes, or even (almost) never, we can remain vigilant, using anxiety to predict (interplaying with the systems you reviewed in your causality post).
Anyway, my brief argument here is to suggest a consideration of the terms fear and anxiety. Brains don’t need to learn to fear, but they do need to learn to be anxious and what to be anxious about.
