Imaging the anxious brain—promise or hubris?

Neuroimaging techniques have provided a unique and unprecedented insight into the functioning human brain. The emergence of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) [1] made a tool available that enabled psychiatric researchers to examine with great anatomical detail the relationship between psychological phenomena and brain physiology. Yet, twenty years later, it is important to take a step back and examine how this tool has helped to elucidate physiological and pathological anxiety related processes and to specifically address the challenges that lay ahead.