Anxiety disorders neurobiology

CHAPTER 55 Neurobiology of Severe Mood and Anxiety Disorders... 

It is hoped that our ever-expanding knowledge of the neurobiology of anxiety and anxiety disorders will yield entirely new pharmacological approaches to the treatment of these disorders. Despite some concerns with their... 

Heim, C. and Nemeroff, C. B. The role of childhood trauma in the neurobiology of mood and anxiety disorders preclinical and clinical studies. Biol. Psych. 49 1023-1039, 2001. 

Charney, D. S. and Drevets, W. C. The neurobiological basis of anxiety disorders. In Neuropsychopharmacology the Fifth Generation of Progress. Ed. Nemeroff, C. Philadelphia Lippincott Williams Wilkins, 2002, pp901-930. 

Charney, D. S. and Bremner, j. D. The neurobiology of anxiety disorders. In Neurobiology of Mental Illness. Ed Bunney, B. S. New York Oxford University Press, 1999, pp494-517. 

Here we shall summarize the neurobiology of adult depression and anxiety disorders and compare these findings to the consequences of early-life stress. For information on the neurobiology of childhood mental disorders, we refer to Part I-C in this book. Notably, there are marked differences in the neurobiology of childhood depression, as compared to adulthood depression, and there appears to exist a subtype of childhood depression that is related to early trauma and has a distinct neurobiology. 

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) refers to a pattern of anxiety, distress, and avoidance following an event experienced as threatening and/or intensely distressing. This disorder has been reported to have behavioral (Zaidi and Foy, 1994) and neurobiological effects into adulthood (Charney and Bremner, 1999). Much of the developmental research on the condition derives from retrospective studies of adults. The many possible biases inherent in such research preclude the generation of firm conclusions on the developmental course of the condition. An important process in the study of PTSD will be to identify the developmental path of the disorder in the context of the prevalence of anxiety disorders in childhood (Costellot et ah, 1996 Pynoos et ah, 1999). 

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