New findings may help neuroscientists pinpoint better
targets for antianxiety treatments.
Anxiety disorders, which include posttraumatic stress
disorder, social phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorder, affect 40 million
American adults in a given year. Currently available treatments, such as
antianxiety drugs, are not always effective and have unwanted side effects.
To develop better treatments, a more specific understanding
of the brain circuits that produce anxiety is necessary, says Kay Tye, an
assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences and member of MIT’s Picower
Institute for Learning and Memory.