University of Wisconsin Researchers Discover the Brain Origins of Variation in Pathological Anxiety

New findings from nonhuman primates suggest that an overactive core circuit in the brain, and its interaction with other specialized circuits, accounts for the variability in symptoms shown by patients with severe anxiety. In a brain-imaging study to be published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health describe work that for the first time provides an understanding of the root causes of clinical variability in anxiety disorders.