Anxiety

Question 1

What is anxiety?

Answer 1

Diffuse unpleasant vague sense of apprehension in anticipation of a future threat.

Question 1

What is Fear?

Answer 1

the emotional response (see Bast’s lectures on emotion) to a real or perceived imminent threat

Question 2

What is fear associated with?

Answer 2

surges in autonomic arousal (needed for fight or flight),

Question 3

What is anxiety associated with?

Answer 3

anxiety is associated with muscle tension and vigilance in preparation for future danger.

Question 4

What are a few anxiety disorders?

Answer 4

• Specific phobia
• Social anxiety disorder (social phobia)
• Panic disorder (sometimes + agoraphobia)
• Generalised anxiety disorder

Question 5

What is the Gene envoronment interaction (PTSD)

Answer 5

normal brain with Combat experience, low risk

Normal brain, no combat , low risk

Suseptible brain (small hippocampus) with combat -high risk

Suseptible brain (small hippocampus) with no combat - low risk

Question 6

What is the Mowrer two factor theory?

Answer 6

Fear to a stimulus (or object, situation) is acquired through classical conditioning

Avoidance is critical in the maintenance of anxiety, because each time subjects encounter the CS, they emit a response to avoid the US (negative reinforcement). When avoidance is high, subjects never experience whether the CS is followed by the US.

Question 7

What happens with Amygdala activation during avoidance

Answer 7

Increased signal in central amygdala during avoidance choices

Question 8

What happens with Amygdala activation in high trait anxiety?

Answer 8

Individuals High in Trait Anxiety Showed Increased Amygdala Responsivity to Phasic Fear Cues

Question 9

What happens with vmPFC activation in high trait anxiety?

Answer 9

• Individuals High in Trait Anxiety Showed Impoverished Pre-extinction
• Ventral Prefrontal Cortical (vPFC) Activities

Question 10

What happens with Amygdala activation in phobics?

Answer 10

Spider phobics show greater amygdala responses compared to controls, to phobic pictures as well as fear and disgust pictures.

Question 11

What happens with Amygdala activation in PTSD

Answer 11

The PTSD group showed greater recruitment of the right amygdala hippocampus during the construction of emotionally intense negative autobiographical memories; the control group showed greater recruitment during construction of emotionally intense positive memories.

Question 12

What happens with vmPFC activation in PTSD?

Answer 12

PTSD group showed greater recruitment of the ventral medial PFC for negatively intense autobiographical memories, whereas the control group showed greater recruitment for positively intense memories

Question 13

What are Benzos used for?

Answer 13

Anxiolytic use mainly in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and acute stress reactions and as hypnotics

Question 14

What can be used as an anti convulsant?

Answer 14

Benzodiazepines
(e.g. in alcohol withdrawal)

Question 15

What are some examples of the anxiolytic drugs Benzodiazepines?

Answer 15

librium or chlordiazepoxide; valium or diazepam

Question 16

What is a positive of benzos?

Answer 16

Low toxicity: high safety ratio, unlike the barbiturates which they replaced.

Question 17

What are 2 weaknesses of Benzodiazapines?

Answer 17

the induction of dependence and associated withdrawal syndrome (e.g. insomnia, anxiety, loss of appetite)

impairment of cognitive performance e.g. anterograde amnesia

Question 18

Where is the 5-HT1A autoreceptor found?

Answer 18

resides on the soma and dendrites of serotonin neurons in the raphe nuclei,

Question 19

What does the 5-HT1A autoreceptor do?

Answer 19

its activation hyperpolarizes and reduces the firing rate of these cells, and thereby serotonin extracellular levels in its projection areas

Question 20

Hariri et al (2002)?

Answer 20

healthy volunteers with the short allele of the serotonin transporter (5 HTTLPR) polymorphism show increased amygdala responses to fearful faces.

Question 21

Shienle et al (2001); Fu et al (2004)?

Answer 21

in patients with depression, the amygdala response to fearful faces is reduced by 8 week SSRI treatment (compared to placebo)

Question 22

How do psychological treatments work?

Answer 22

They work on the assumption that some fears (i.e., phobias) are learned and therefore presentation (and/or imagination) of stimuli associated with a feared outcome will extinguish the fear and anxiety.