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The Role of the Amygdala in Anxiety Disorders

G. Forster,Andrew M. Novick,J. Scholl,M. Watt

Published 2012 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

Anxiety is a term often used to encompass feelings of apprehension, dread, unease or similarly unpleasant emotions. Trait anxiety defines the affect of an organism over time and across situations, whereas state anxiety is the response or adaptation to a given situation [1]. Anxiety can be differentiated from fear, both biologically and behaviorally [see 1 for an extensive review]. Converging theories and evidence from clinical psychology and comparative neuroscience suggest that fear can be considered a negatively-valenced emotion that is brief, focused on the present, occurs in situations of specific threat, and aids in avoidance or escape [1,2]. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a negatively-valenced emotion that is characterized by sustained hyperarousal in response to uncertainty, is thus futurefocused, and aids in defensive approach or risk assessment [1,2]. Both anxiety and fear are emotions experienced by all individuals and can serve to be adaptive in shaping decisions and behaviors related to survival of an organism [1,3]. However, when excessive, or pathological, or triggered inappropriately, fear and anxiety form the basis of a variety of anxiety disorders [3,4,5; Table 1]. As illustrated by Table 1, some anxiety disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are characterized by excessive anxiety as defined above [1]. However, other anxiety disorders are characterized, at least in part, by excessive and inappropriate fear, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), specific phobias and social anxiety disorder [1,3; Table 1]. Thus, it is important to understand the neurobiology of both anxiety and fear to obtain a comprehensive picture of the physiological basis of anxiety disorders.

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