Prefrontal cortical circuits in anxiety and fear: an overview.
10.1007/s11684-022-0941-2
- Author:
Yihua CHEN
1
;
Nengyuan HU
2
;
Jianming YANG
2
;
Tianming GAO
3
Author Information
1. State Key Laboratory of Organ Failure Research, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Psychiatric Disorders, Department of Neurobiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China. chenyihua@smu.edu.cn.
2. State Key Laboratory of Organ Failure Research, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Psychiatric Disorders, Department of Neurobiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China.
3. State Key Laboratory of Organ Failure Research, Key Laboratory of Mental Health of the Ministry of Education, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Psychiatric Disorders, Department of Neurobiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, China. tgao@smu.edu.cn.
- Publication Type:Review
- Keywords:
DREADD;
anxiety;
fear;
neural circuits;
optogenetics;
prefrontal cortex
- MeSH:
Anxiety;
Anxiety Disorders/therapy*;
Fear/psychology*;
Humans;
Neural Pathways;
Prefrontal Cortex
- From:
Frontiers of Medicine
2022;16(4):518-539
- CountryChina
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Pathological anxiety is among the most difficult neuropsychiatric diseases to treat pharmacologically, and it represents a major societal problem. Studies have implicated structural changes within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and functional changes in the communication of the PFC with distal brain structures in anxiety disorders. Treatments that affect the activity of the PFC, including cognitive therapies and transcranial magnetic stimulation, reverse anxiety- and fear-associated circuit abnormalities through mechanisms that remain largely unclear. While the subjective experience of a rodent cannot be precisely determined, rodent models hold great promise in dissecting well-conserved circuits. Newly developed genetic and viral tools and optogenetic and chemogenetic techniques have revealed the intricacies of neural circuits underlying anxiety and fear by allowing direct examination of hypotheses drawn from existing psychological concepts. This review focuses on studies that have used these circuit-based approaches to gain a more detailed, more comprehensive, and more integrated view on how the PFC governs anxiety and fear and orchestrates adaptive defensive behaviors to hopefully provide a roadmap for the future development of therapies for pathological anxiety.
