Psychology & Psychiatry

Synaptic protein regulates anxiety behaviour

Anxiety disorders are severe mental disorders in which patients suffer from intense fears and anxiety or from sudden, inexplicable panic attacks. In extreme cases, the affected individuals barely leave their homes, which ...

Neuroscience

Your brain suppresses perception of heartbeat, for your own good

EPFL researchers have discovered that the human brain suppresses the sensory effects of the heartbeat. They believe that this mechanism prevents internal sensations from interfering with the brain's perception of the external ...

Medical research

Natural 'high' could avoid chronic marijuana use

Replenishing the supply of a molecule that normally activates cannabinoid receptors in the brain could relieve mood and anxiety disorders and enable some people to quit using marijuana, a Vanderbilt University study suggests.

Neuroscience

'Anxiety cells' identified in the brain's hippocampus

Do your palms sweat when you walk down a poorly lit street at night? That feeling may be traced to the firing of newly identified "anxiety" cells deep inside your brain, according to new research from neuroscientists at Columbia ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Research breakthrough in treating anxiety and depression

Pioneered by researchers at Monash University, a promising new, 'whole person' approach to the treatment of anxiety and depression has been developed in an effort to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of current treatment, ...

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Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of a type of mental illness of abnormal and pathological fear and anxiety. Conditions now considered anxiety disorders only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the end of the 19th century. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes (2005) explains that anxiety disorders are classified in two groups: continuous symptoms and episodic symptoms. Current psychiatric diagnostic criteria recognize a wide variety of anxiety disorders. Recent surveys have found that as many as 18% of Americans may be affected by one or more of them.

The term anxiety covers four aspects of experiences an individual may have: mental apprehension, physical tension, physical symptoms and dissociative anxiety. Anxiety disorder is divided into generalized anxiety disorder, phobic disorder, and panic disorder; each has its own characteristics and symptoms and they require different treatment (Gelder et al. 2005). The emotions present in anxiety disorders range from simple nervousness to bouts of terror (Barker 2003).

Standardized screening clinical questionnaires such as the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale or the Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale can be used to detect anxiety symptoms, and suggest the need for a formal diagnostic assessment of anxiety disorder.

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