Anxiety disorders

…risk for major depression and anxiety disorders. Nevertheless, not all individuals exposed to strong stressful events develop psychopathology, with the mechanisms of resilience

…with implications for understanding anxiety disorders and developing targeted interventions. Presented by Dr. Kenneth Hayworth, this journal club will explore

Anxiety disorders are marked by intense and chronic worrying along other symptoms, including an attentional bias towards negative valence. Preclinical models have linked the activity of the anterior insular cortex (or insula) to both anxiety and negative valence[1]. We recently showed an increased dopamine release onto anterior insula neurons expressing type-1 dopamine receptors (D1R) during anxiogenic events and during aversive stimuli[2]. We also revealed that both systemic and intra-anterior insula D1R activation heighten anxiety-like behaviors[2]. However, the impact of D1R on anterior ins

In the context of current global changes, a notable increase in major depressive and anxiety disorders worldwide has surfaced, underscoring the urgent need to comprehend stress resilience. The influence of stress on health is evident; however, not all individuals are predisposed to developing associated problems, as certain individuals demonstrate resilience. The animal models offer a valuable approach to investigating the mechanisms that differentiate resilience from vulnerability. Our research focuses on the endocannabinoid(eCB) system, specifically CB2 receptors, known for their roles in ne

…safe situations, a hallmark of anxiety disorders. Innate avoidance, a natural aversion to ethologically relevant stimuli, involves a neural circuit in which the basolateral amygdala (BLA) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) play a central role. We have observed that both the PFC and the BLA send converging unidirectional excitatory inputs to the dorsomedial striatum (DMS), which thus may be ideally positioned to regulate the output of this circuit. Indeed, the D

Sleep disturbances are commonly linked with and constitute fundamental characteristics of anxiety disorders. However, the effects of actively increased sleep, especially slow wave sleep (SWS), after social defeat stress, on emotion regulation remain unexplored. By inducing time-locked SWS in mice by optogenetically stimulating the SWS promoting center in Vgat-ChR2-eYFP mice, we provide a direct approach to analyze the influences of SWS on anxiety-like behavior. Here we report that SWS induced by photostimulation immediately after social defeat prevents the development of anxiety disorder. We a

…but is also involved in triggering anxiety in certain individuals. Caffeine is a non-selective adenosine receptor antagonist. When stimulated the receptors facilitate neurotransmitter release, long term potentiation, smooth muscle relaxation, and vasodilation to mention a few. Immature cortical and hippocampal primary cell cultures from rat were treated day 1-4 in vitro with non-sele

Anxiety disorders frequently accompanies aggression and their co-occurrence predicts worse functional impairment and poor prognosis. Nevertheless, the underlying neural mechanisms for co-occurring anxiety disorders and aggression remains elusive mostly due to the lack of appropriate animal models. Here, we designed a chronic coveted stress (CCS) male mouse model in which a pair of male mouse (owner) and a female mouse (partner) are physically separated from a peer conspecific male mouse (single) that poses a chronic emotional stress. After 7-day modeling, mice exposure to CCS exhibited anxiety

…Patients with anxiety disorders (AD) and highly anxious individuals show accelerated fear conditioning and diminished fear extinction, highlighting the necessity of improving extinction learning in AD patients. Instructions given prior to extinction training, stating that the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) will not be presented anymore, have been shown to improve extinction learning. Furthermore, it has been shown that relapse of fear can be reduced by repeating th

Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental disorders, having inappropriate learned fear and resistance to extinction as cardinal features. Exposure therapy represents a promising therapeutic approach, the efficiency of which depends on inter-individual variation in fear extinction learning. Previously we reported that the formation of fear memories is associated with a general downregulation of the tropomyosin receptor kinase C (TrkC) activation in the brain fear network. Particularly, inactivation of TrkC and of the downstream Erk1/2 signaling in the hippocampus is associated with the

…as biomarkers for neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety disorders. However, it is not clear whether IL-6 may cause a dysregulation of emotional behaviors observed in posttraumatic stress (PTSD) and other anxiety disorders. Fear conditioning is a widely used paradigm to model memory-related features of PTSD in mice. We therefore tested auditory-cued fear memory features in male and female IL-6 knockout mice. We observed a reduced generalization of fear memory towards a non-conditioned tone, especially in female IL-6 k

Chronic stress is a major risk factor for depression and anxiety disorders, particularly in women. Stress leads to impaired neuroplasticity and neuroinflammation, but these effects can be ameliorated by physical activity. Mechanistically, neuroplasticity and neuroinflammation are linked through the fractalkine pathway, whose receptor CX3CR1 is exclusively expressed on microglia in the brain. We previously linked CX3CR1 deficiency to impaired neuroplasticity and microglial function in the motor cortex (M1) and showed that, depending on stress vulnerability, stress also leads to impaired motor l

Mood disorders such as depression or anxiety disorders are the most prevalent psychiatric diseases and represent the highest level of avoidable health-care cost in first world countries. Nonetheless, the biological foundation of these diseases is only poorly understood despite decades of research. Most clinically used antidepressants target the monoamine system and aim at either raising the levels of monoamines (serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine) in the synaptic cleft through inhibition of reuptake or act on monoaminergic receptors. However, it takes several weeks until an antidepressant eff

Emotional residue from past or anticipated future events is common and can contribute to anxiety if exacerbated. The orbitofrontal cortex is a region that is widely implicated in anxiety disorders as well as future predictions. Here we demonstrate a double dissociation within this region, where the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) is specialized for prediction of future states, setting it apart from its medial counterpart (mOFC). Fifteen participants rated their arousal (Fig1a) while watching a movie under the scanner with a few 25-second rests inserted strategically. These were categorize

…and emotional states, and specifically anxiety disorders and depression. However, stress experiences vary from one individual to the next, meaning that causal relationships and mechanistic accounts are often difficult to establish in humans. This interdisciplinary talk considers the value of research in experimental animals where stressor experiences can be tightly controlled and detailed investi

…as interventions for adults with anxiety disorders. We will also examine the implementation of different types of functional connectivity anal