Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety

trauma-and-survival

• Constant and unsubstantiated worry that causes significant distress and interferes with daily life versus everyday embarrassment or nerves before a significant event.

  ANX-RC-020

• Threats activate a defensive motivational state in the brain; the prey's goal is to exit the predatory sequence as soon as possible to prevent harm or death.

  ANX-RC-077

• Extinction is itself a form of learning; facilitating NMDA receptor function strengthens extinction and exposure therapy effects in anxiety treatment.

  ANX-RC-271

mind-and-cognition

• Threat conditioning involves convergence of the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus in amygdala and prefrontal circuits underlying conditioning and extinction of defense responses.

  ANX-RC-262

• Maladaptive beliefs may become habitual and automatic; cognitive therapy engages explicit cognition and working memory through reappraisal to shift perspective.

  ANX-RC-099

self-and-identity

• Each type of implicit memory depends on its own distinct brain circuit; conscious recognition draws upon implicit processes through pattern completion.

  ANX-RC-034