Mental Health Weekly Digest
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Anxiety
New insights into the neural basis of anxiety
June 18th, 2007
People who suffer from anxiety tend to interpret ambiguous situations, situations that could potentially be dangerous but not necessarily so, as threatening. Researchers from the Mouse Biology Unit of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Italy have now uncovered the neural basis for such anxiety behaviour in mice. In the current issue of Nature Neuroscience they report that a receptor for the messenger serotonin and a neural circuit involving a brain region called the hippocampus play crucial roles in mediating fear responses in ambiguous situations. A mouse that has learned that a certain cue, for example a tone, is always followed by an electrical shock...
Source: Mental Health Weekly Digest (2007-06-18)
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