How Brain Activity Turns Fear into Anxiety-Health

The team of researchers is now trying to understand the brain’s response to fear, and why some Case, It can cause long-term anxiety states such as post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD).

A research team at the University of New Mexico and graduate student Taylor W Eusleman, led by Dr. Elaine L. Bearer, MD, a Harvey family professor of pathology, and for the first time, Taylor W Eusleman, first identified a brain-wide neural correlate of the transition from fear to anxiety.

“To date, what psychiatrists are doing in the brain after a horrifying experience, and why some people don’t easily recover and remain anxious even during the rest of their lives? We had very little information,” Bearer said.

While not feasible in human subjects, rodents can cause fear by being exposed to horrific odors such as the products commonly used to protect barbecues from nesting in mice. This odor simulates the smell of a predator and scares the mouse.

The UNM team used this trick to observe how the brain responds to dreadful events and discover how brain activity evolves from dreadful emotions to anxiety.

They report in a paper published this week in the journal NeuroImage that correlate behavior with brain activity by observing behavior and capturing magnetic resonance images before, during, and after being exposed to non-scary and scary odors. doing.

They engineered vulnerabilities to anxiety by manipulating the serotonin transporter (SERT), a prime target for psychotropic drugs such as cocaine and antidepressants such as Prozac. Deletion of the SERT gene (SERT-KO) creates vulnerability to anxiety, thus providing a unique model for learning how to turn a dreadful experience into anxiety.

UNM researchers compared normal and SERT-KO behavior with brain activity to identify neural correlates of anxiety. These areas are active in anxious SERT-KO and not in normal subjects.

To highlight active neurons, they used manganese, a nontoxic ion that illuminates active neurons in magnetic resonance imaging. Computational analysis of these whole-brain images provided maps of whole-brain activity before, immediately after, and after long exposure to scary odors.

They identified differences in neural activity in 45 subregions throughout the brain. Some areas were rejuvenated by horrific odors, and some areas only came later. Vulnerability to anxiety correlated with more activity in more regions.

The function of some of these areas, including the amygdala and hypothalamus, is at least partially understood, but other areas such as the reward circuit were not previously known to be involved in anxiety.

In anxiety, coordination between areas has changed. This may represent a sign of anxiety throughout the brain. Or, it may indicate a lack of coordination between brain regions that is often experienced when there is fear or anxiety.

“We now know that anxiety brain activity is not the same as acute fear response. Anxiety increases neural activity across many specific areas of the brain, causing loss of normal coordination between areas. “Bearer said.

What does this mean in the age of COVID? A time lag of resilient or anxious consequences suggests that early containment of cases, protests, and dreadful reactions to recessionary recession may reduce the likelihood of progression to anxiety ..

Serotonin involvement also suggests pharmacological targets that may help reduce the likelihood of anxiety. Meditation, music, poetry, exercise, and other stress-relief activities that use reward circuits may also help. Early intervention has permanent benefits.

(This article has been published from the telegraph agency feed with no changes to the text. Only the headings have changed.)

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