Plasticity and Anxiety

Plasticity and Anxiety

Anxiety is a very broad behavioural trait, helping animals to cope with dangerous environmental situations. As anxiety is linked to other emotional processes and to cognitive functions such as learning and memory, it involves a number of cerebral structures and brain transmitter systems, thereby giving rise to a high degree of plasticity. Within the limited space of a single issue, it is obviou...

PS03. Plasticity-augmented psychotherapy for refractory depressive and anxiety disorders

Psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy have been the mainstays of treatment for depression and anxiety disorders during the last century. However, treatment response has not improved in the last few decades, with only half of all patients responding satisfactorily to typical antidepressants. To fulfill the needs of the remaining patients, new treatments with better efficacy are in demand. The additi...

Neural Plasticity of Extinction: Relations with Anxiety and Extinction Retention

Neural plasticity in response to attention training in anxiety.

BACKGROUND Behavioral studies show that attention training can alter threat bias, influence vulnerability to stress and reduce clinical anxiety symptoms. The aim of this study was to examine which cognitive functions of attention processing are modulated by attention training, and how a priori anxiety interacts with the attention training procedure. Specifically, we expected modulation in the P...

Stress and anxiety: structural plasticity and epigenetic regulation as a consequence of stress.

The brain is the central organ of stress and adaptation to stress because it perceives and determines what is threatening, as well as the behavioral and physiological responses to the stressor. The adult, as well as developing brain, possess a remarkable ability to show reversible structural and functional plasticity in response to stressful and other experiences, including neuronal replacement...