What Causes Performance Anxiety (Stage Fright)?
In learning situations, conscious memories are laid down by a system involving the hippocampus, and unconscious memories are established by fear conditioning mechanisms operating in the amygdala. These two parts of the brain operate parallel to one another and store varying types of information related to the learning experience.[1] When a person is exposed to a stressful situation, the adrenal gland secretes a steroid hormone into the blood stream, which helps the body mobilize its energy resources to deal with the stress.[2] Because the amygdala is involved in the control of the release of adrenal steroids, when anxiety occurs, the amygdala sends messages to the thalamus, which then sends messages to the pituitary gland, which releases a hormone called ACTH. ACTH flows through the blood to the adrenal gland, causing it to release the steroid hormone. This steroid hormone flows through the blood to the brain, where it attaches to receptors in the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal
