{"title":"The Organization of Anxiety Symptoms Along the Threat Imminence Continuum.","authors":"Ya'ira Somerville, Rany Abend","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2024_548","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pathological anxiety is highly prevalent, impairing, and often chronic. Yet, despite considerable research, mechanistic understanding of anxiety and its translation to clinical practice remain limited. Here, we first highlight two foundational complications that contribute to this gap: a reliance on a phenomenology-driven definition of pathological anxiety in neurobiological mechanistic research, and a limited understanding of the chronicity of anxiety symptom expression. We then posit that anxiety symptoms may reflect aberrant expression of otherwise normative defensive responses. Accordingly, we propose that threat imminence, an organizing dimension for normative defensive responses observed across species, may be applied to organize and understand anxiety symptoms along a temporal dimension of expression. Empirical evidence linking distinct anxiety symptoms and the aberrant expression of imminence-dependent defensive responses is reviewed, alongside the neural mechanisms which may underpin these cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses. Drawing from extensive translational and clinical research, we suggest that understanding anxiety symptoms through this neurobiologically-informed framework may begin to overcome the conceptual complications hindering advancement in mechanistic research and clinical interventions for pathological anxiety.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142695230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deepening Psychedelic Integration: Exploring Complex Settings, Understanding User's Struggles, and Implementing Safe Interventions.","authors":"Marc Aixalà","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_532","DOIUrl":"10.1007/7854_2024_532","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This chapter adopts a transdisciplinary approach to explore the concept of psychedelic integration, considering its various contexts ranging from clinical trials to Neo-shamanic, traditional, and recreational settings. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding and description of integration, distinguishing between the needs of maximising potential benefits and addressing adverse reactions. Psychedelic Integration is a widely used term that refers to a variety of practices commonly employed after psychedelic experiences to help ground the benefits or address the challenges that arise from them. Although the term is broadly accepted, it lacks a precise definition, and a wide range of practices and techniques, often quite different from one another, are included under this category. Drawing on the experiences at the ICEERS (International Center for Ethnobotanical Education Research and Services) Integration and Support Service since 2012, the chapter highlights the practical aspects of clinical intervention.The chapter delves into the profiles of individuals seeking integration support, focusing on the primary challenges they encounter. These profiles include lack of preparation, unresolved experiences, difficulties with facilitators, traumatic psychedelic episodes, the exacerbation of pre-existing mental disorders, the emergence of previously unknown traumatic events, repeated psychedelic use without proper integration, and perceptions of being attacked or possessed by entities.Moreover, an overview of a method of clinical intervention that underscores the fundamental values inherent in psychedelic work is presented. This approach aims to integrate these values into the intervention process, employing a brief and focused methodology. By tailoring the intervention to the individual's specific needs, this method facilitates effective integration and support.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142695224","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Antonio Florido, Vincent R Curtis, Nicolas C Pégard, Jose Rodriguez-Romaguera
{"title":"Disentangling the Neural Circuits of Arousal and Anxiety-Like Behavior.","authors":"Antonio Florido, Vincent R Curtis, Nicolas C Pégard, Jose Rodriguez-Romaguera","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_539","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2024_539","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Anxiety disorders are prevalent and debilitating conditions characterized by excessive concern and fear, affecting thoughts, behaviors, and sensations. A critical component of anxiety is arousal, a complex process involving alertness regulation and stimulus salience modulation. While arousal is adaptive in normal circumstances, dysregulation can lead to hypoarousal or hyperarousal, affecting response selection and threat perception. This chapter reviews challenges in studying arousal in preclinical anxiety models, emphasizing the need for multicomponent measurement and analysis. Novel methodologies integrating physiological measurement with activity tracking of neurons with single-cell resolution in awake animals are discussed, with emphasis in current challenges. Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for developing effective treatments for anxiety disorders.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142695229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Developmental Shifts in Amygdala Function.","authors":"J Amiel Rosenkranz","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_538","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2024_538","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mammals have evolved with strategies to optimize survival and thrive in their native environment. This includes both physical and behavioral adaptations, and extends to their social environment. However, within a social context, the roles of an animal change across development, and their behavior and biology must update to match these changes. The amygdala has a key role in social and emotional processing and expression, and displays developmental changes in early juvenile, adolescent, and adult transitions. Furthermore, the amygdala is highly sensitive to the social environment. This chapter will describe the primary amygdala developmental changes, how this maps onto major changes in social and emotional domains, and propose a framework where developmental stage of intra-amygdala circuits and its regulation by cortical inputs biases the animal toward developmentally appropriate social and emotional behavior. This developmental plasticity also presents an opportunity for retuning the developmental trajectory in the presence of ongoing challenges during maturation, such as constant threat or resource scarcity, so there can be realignment of behavior to match environmental demands.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142638232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Genetic Vulnerability to Social Anxiety Disorder.","authors":"Janna Marie Bas-Hoogendam","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_544","DOIUrl":"10.1007/7854_2024_544","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Most anxiety disorders 'run within families': people suffering from an anxiety disorder often have family members who are highly anxious as well. In this chapter, we explore recent work devoted to unraveling the complex interplay between genes and environment in the development of anxiety. We review studies focusing on the genetic vulnerability to develop social anxiety disorder (SAD), as SAD is one of the most prevalent anxiety disorders, with an early onset, a chronic course, and associated with significant life-long impairments. More insight into the development of SAD is thus of uttermost importance.First, we will discuss family studies, twin studies, and large-sized population-based registry studies and explain what these studies can reveal about the genetic vulnerability to develop anxiety. Next, we describe the endophenotype approach; in this context, we will summarize results from the Leiden Family Lab study on Social Anxiety Disorder. Subsequently, we review the relationship between the heritable trait 'behavioral inhibition' and the development of SAD, and highlight the relevance of this work for the development and improvement of preventative and therapeutic interventions for socially anxious youth.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142616618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Contribution of the Renin-Angiotensin System to Alzheimer's Disease.","authors":"Özge Güzel, Patrick G Kehoe","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_525","DOIUrl":"10.1007/7854_2024_525","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is becoming increasingly recognised as a biochemical pathway relevant to the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). RAS involvement in AD was initially linked to AD via numerous genetic association studies and more recent Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS), and in some cases in relation to classical hallmarks of AD pathology. Since these initial findings, which will be summarised here, several complementary areas of research are converging in support of what has been proposed as the Angiotensin Hypothesis for Alzheimer's disease. This hypothesis proposes how the RAS and disease-associated changes to the normal balance between opposing regulatory pathways within RAS warrant careful consideration in the pathogenesis of AD and its pathology. We discuss some of these in relation to RAS-targeting therapeutics, originally developed for the treatment of cardiovascular conditions, and how they might be repurposed as interventions for AD.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142616634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yanbin Niu, M Catalina Camacho, Shuang Wu, Kathryn L Humphreys
{"title":"The Impact of Early Life Experiences on Stress Neurobiology and the Development of Anxiety.","authors":"Yanbin Niu, M Catalina Camacho, Shuang Wu, Kathryn L Humphreys","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_542","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2024_542","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We examine the association between stress exposure during early development (i.e., the prenatal period through the first two postnatal years) and variation in brain structure and function relevant to anxiety. Evidence of stress-related effects occurring in regions essential for emotional processing and regulation may increase susceptibility to anxiety.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142616638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Interoception, Insula, and Autonomic Integration: Relevance to the Expression and Treatment of Psychiatric Symptoms.","authors":"Hugo D Critchley, Joel Patchitt","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2024_518","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The mind is embodied, and this is relevant to mental health and psychiatric illness. Interoception is the body-to-brain axis of sensory information flow and its representation at the neural and psychological levels. Interoception is the purported basis for motivation and emotion, and as an inescapable stream of information about the health and functioning of the whole organism, it is proposed to be the foundation to the conscious unitary sense of self. Correspondingly, this central representation of internal state is relevant to understanding the expression of psychological symptoms and behaviours and ultimately psychiatric disorders. Here we review interoception, particularly from a cardiovascular perspective, and how understanding theoretical neural and psychological aspects of interoception relates to perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. We examine how perturbations in interoceptive processing are expressed in mental symptoms and psychiatric disorders and show how this knowledge may yield new treatment targets.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142616623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Katelyn I Oliver, Dasani DelRosario, Jennifer S Stevens
{"title":"Sex Differences in the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety.","authors":"Katelyn I Oliver, Dasani DelRosario, Jennifer S Stevens","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2024_536","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although women are diagnosed with anxiety and stress-related disorders at twice the rate of men, there remains a lack of clarity around how to enhance treatment within each sex to reduce disparate rates of anxiety. However, in recent years, a growing literature has identified neural, cognitive, and physiological mechanisms that contribute to sex differences in fear and anxiety, with the promise of informing tailored treatment approaches. Here, we review recent findings, focusing on human studies among healthy populations as well as among patients with generalized anxiety, social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and panic disorder. The literature reveals nuanced differences in the types of stimuli that preferentially evoke anxiety and stress responses in women and men, as well as sex differences in threat neurocircuitry that mediates the behavioral, physiological, and subjective components of fear and anxiety.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142603358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structural Brain Correlates of Anxiety During Development.","authors":"E Leighton Durham, Antonia N Kaczkurkin","doi":"10.1007/7854_2024_541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2024_541","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Anxiety and related disorders are prevalent across the lifespan, often have their onset during youth, and are associated with notable levels of impairment and burden across multiple domains. Elucidating the associations between differential patterns of neurodevelopment and anxiety in youth is a promising approach for developing deeper insights regarding the neurobiological etiologies and maintenance factors associated with anxiety and related disorders. A growing body of literature has yielded evidence of associations between patterns of brain structure (i.e., volume, cortical thickness, and cortical surface area) and anxiety. Here, we present a review and synthesis of the existing body of literature surrounding neurostructural correlates of anxiety in youth spanning multiple anxiety presentations and three neurostructural modalities. We reveal substantially more research focusing on brain volume than cortical thickness or surface area and a greater number of studies examining anxiety broadly defined, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder. There is also evidence of considerable variability in the brain regions implicated and the direction of associations across studies. Finally, we discuss the gaps and limitations in this body of work, which suggest avenues for future directions.</p>","PeriodicalId":11257,"journal":{"name":"Current topics in behavioral neurosciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142603363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}