Researchers have identified a brain region that links anxious temperament to low social status. Neuroscientists at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne have pinpointed an area of the brain related to motivation and depression that could link trait anxiety to social subordination. In the study researchers performed a series of experiments on rats to identify the brain areas involved in trait anxiety and social competition. The experiments involved categorising rats on a spectrum of trait anxiety from low-anxious to high-anxious rats which model trait anxiety. (Read: Social anxiety behind excessive Facebook use?) The experiments highlighted an area of the brain known