Anxiety Disorder 1 Flashcards
What is pathologica anxiety and what are its:
- components
- patterns
- signs
(4 marks)
- Pathological anxiety: An exaggerated fear state in which there is hyperexcitablity of fear circuits including the amygdala and extended amygdala
- Components: apprehnesion, nervous
- Patterns: generalised - may last hours, days not to specific threat and paroxysmal (abrupt, onset, episodic)
- Signs: tachycardia, palpitations
What are some of the simliarities and differences between fear and anxiety?
(4 marks)
Similarities:
- Presence/ anticipation to danger
- Elevated arousal
- Negative affect
- Bodily sensations
Differences:
- Anxiety:
- quality of sustained vigilance
- no presentable/ identifiable threat
- Fear:
- reasonable connection to threat
- identifiable threat
- no quality of sustained vigilance
Around which age period does the onset of anxiety tend to occur?
- During childhood
With which other mental illness does anxiety tend to share cormobidity with?
(1 mark)
Depression - tend to be treated very similarly - belived that one or other is primary/ secondary condition
What are the 3 forms of anxiety?
(3 marks)
- Behavioural activation system
- Behavioural inhibition system
- Fight/flight system
What is the behavioural activation system?
(2 marks)
- Reward system - teaches you that behaciour can affect your mood
- Involves the neocortex, VTA, striatum and is sensitive to appetitive or reward behaviour
What is the behavioural inhibtion system?
(2 marks)
- Punishment system
- Involves ARAS, brainstem neocortical projection from cortex
- Responsive to punishment novelty and uncertainty
ARAS = acending reticular activating system
What is the fight/flight system?
(2 marks)
- Threat
- alteration here may cause anxiety
What is the ‘Uncertainity and anticiptiation model of anxiety’ (UAMA)?
(1 mark)
- Shows an increases threat expectancy which isn’t real and is harder to treat
What are the five processes underlying the ‘uncertainty and anticipation model of anxiety’?
(5 marks)
- Inflated estimates of threat cost and probability
- Increased threat attention and hypervigilance
- Deficient safety learning
- Behavioural and cognitive avoidance
- Heightened reactivity to threat uncertainty
What key brain regions are implicated in maladaptive responses to anxiety in UAMA?
(7 marks)
- Amygdala
- Bed nucleus of Stria terminalis
- Ventral prefrontal cortex
- Dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
- Orbitofronal cortex
- Anteriror insula
found implication of BNST??
What structural changes can be seen in anxiety and what has fMRI shown?
(4 marks)
- Increase in amygdala and hippocampal volume and activation
- Increased connectivity in PFC with amygdala and anterior hippocampus
- Activation of BNST - BOLD signal showed activity here is altered and the way BNST processes information in response to threat is altered
In which brain regions can activity be seen under these tages of anxiety:
- Inflated estimates of threat
- Increased threat attention hypervigilance
- Deficient safety learning
- Avoidance
- Increase reactivty to uncertainty
(5 marks)
- Increase in activty in PFC
- Increase in acitivity in the amygdala
- Affects vmPFC
- Affecting dlPFC first
- Affects BNST which modulates fear system responses
Give examples of animal fear models to test fear.
(2 marks)
- Pavlovian fear conditioning
- Acoustic startle response
Give examples of animal models for stress,
(2 marks)
- Measuring plasma hormones (glucocorticoids)
- Measuring vital signs
Where do the BSNT and teh CeA receive projections from and what do they do?
(1 mark)
- Recieve projections from the BLA and in turn project downstream to modulate behavioural and electrophsyical consequences of fear and anxiety
