In human beings, susceptibility to anxiety disorders can be relatively high during adolescence. Understanding the ontogeny of anxiety-like behavior in laboratory rodents has implications for developing anxiolytic drugs that are suitable for this age group. Given the dearth of information about adolescent rodents, this study examined the response of both male and female adolescent, late adolesce...

BACKGROUND Antidepressants and anxiolytics have demonstrated short-term efficacy; however, little is known about the long-term effectiveness of these drugs. AIMS To investigate long-term psychiatric outcomes following antidepressant and/or anxiolytic use during an episode of mental disorder in mid-life. METHOD Members of the 1946 British birth cohort were assessed for symptoms of depression...

A major hindrance for the development of psychiatric drugs is the prediction of how treatments can alter complex behaviors in assays which have good throughput and physiological complexity. Here we report the development of a medium-throughput screen for drugs which alter anxiety-like behavior in adult zebrafish. The observed phenotypes were clustered according to shared behavioral effects. Thi...

Until recently, claims for the psychological benefits of physical exercise have tended to precede supportive evidence. Acutely, emotional effects of exercise remain confusing, both positive and negative effects being reported. Results of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies are more consistent in indicating that aerobic exercise training has antidepressant and anxiolytic effects and protect...

Stress plays a key role in pathogenesis of anxiety and depression. Animal models of these disorders are widely used in behavioral neuroscience to explore stress-evoked brain abnormalities, screen anxiolytic/antidepressant drugs and establish behavioral phenotypes of gene-targeted or transgenic animals. Here we discuss the current situation with these experimental models, and critically evaluate...

Laboratory rats are usually kept in relatively small cages, but research has shown that they prefer larger and more complex environments. The physiological, neurological and health effects of standard laboratory housing are well established, but fewer studies have addressed the sustained emotional impact of a standard cage environment. One method of assessing affective states in animals is to l...

Background The opioid drug buprenorphine has been shown to modify responses to emotional stimuli and may have antidepressant properties. In preclinical studies, it shows antidepressant-like and anxiolytic-like effects, and a handful of clinical studies suggest it may reduce symptoms of depression in patients. We have shown that low doses of buprenorphine reduce responses to negative emotional s...

Lithium not only has a mood-stabilizing effect but also the augmentation effect of an antidepressant, the mechanism of which remains unclear. Although lithium may augment the effect of mirtazapine, this augmentation has not been confirmed. Using a contextual fear conditioning test in rats, an animal model of anxiety or fear, we examined the effect of subchronic lithium carbonate (in diet) in co...

Introduction Evaluation of anxiety and depression in cardiac patients is an area of nursing practice that is frequently neglected. The aim of the study was to explore anxiety and depression in hospitalized patients with their first episode of acute myocardial infarction. Material and methods The study sample included 148 hospitalized patients who had a first episode of acute myocardial infarc...

OBJECTIVE This article focuses on the differential activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. METHOD The results of recently reported reviews of the literature are summarized and discussed. RESULTS The results of experimental studies that assayed adrenocorticotropic hormone, cortisol and prolactin show that real-life panic attac...