20 million Americans (15%) suffer from anxiety disorders
Anxiety exacerbates all other mental and medical problems
Economic cost: > $50 billion per year (0.4 GDP)
Investing in the prevention and treatment of anxiety, especially in children, is the most efficient way to improve the health and well-being of our society
How Do We Prevent and Treat Anxiety?
We go to the source.
Fig 3
NEURAL CIRCUIT
AMYGDALA
THREATENINGSTIMULUS
FEAR RESPONSES
MUSCLETENSION
BLOOD PRESSURE
RESPIRATION
Auditory Cortex
AuditoryThalamus
CG LH PVN
ANSFREEZING HORMONES
LA
AMYGDALACE
cs
Somatosensory Cortex
SomatosensThalamus
us
CS Pathway US Pathway
BITC
SYNAPSE
MOLECULAR MECHANISMS
tone tone+shock tone
Fear ConditioningFIGHT FLIGHT RESPONSE
Present and Future Goals
Erasing traumatic memory
Finding neuronal markers of individual differences in fear
Discovering new ways to help children and adultsreduce anxiety so that anxiety disorders don’t develop
drugs that eliminate memoryin amygdala after remembering
Structural, physiological, andgenetic correlates of extremefear in the amygdala
Dampening amygdala activityby stress reduction techniques(controlled breathing)- shuts down fight-flight response
Drugs or gene therapy that targets the amygdala
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