Description Table of Contents Details Editors Reviews

Description

This Handbook brings together and integrates comprehensively the core approaches to fear and anxiety. Its four sections: Animal models; neural systems; pharmacology; and clinical approaches, provide a range of perspectives that interact to produce new light on these important and sometimes dysfunctional emotions. Fear and anxiety are analyzed as patterns that have evolved on the basis of their adaptive functioning in response to threat. These patterns are stringently selected, providing a close fit with environmental situations and events; they are highly conservative across mammalian species, producing important similarities, along with some systematic differences, in their human expression in comparison to that of nonhuman mammals. These patterns are described, with attention to both adaptive and maladaptive components, and related to new understanding of neuroanatomic, neurotransmitter, and genetic mechanisms. Although chapters in the volume acknowledge important differences in views of fear and anxiety stemming from animal vs. human research, the emphasis of the volume is on a search for an integrated view that will facilitate the use of animal models of anxiety to predict drug response in people; on new technologies that will enable direct evaluation of biological mechanisms in anxiety disorders; and on strengthening the analysis of anxiety disorders as biological phenomena.

Key Features

Integrates animal and human research on fear and anxiety Presents emerging and developing fields of human anxiety research including imaging of anxiety disorders, the genetics of anxiety, the pharmacology of anxiolysis, recent developments in classification of anxiety disorders, linking these to animal work Covers basic research on innate and conditioned responses to threat Presents work from the major laboratories, on fear learning and extinction Reviews research on an array of neurotransmitter and neuromodulator systems related to fear and anxiety Compares models, and neural systems for learned versus unlearned responses to threat Relates the findings to the study, diagnostics, and treatment of anxiety disorders, the major source of mental illness in modern society (26 % of Americans are affected by anxiety disorders!)

Readership

Neuroscientists, Psychologists, Psychopharmacologists, Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists

Table of Contents

Section 1. Introduction Introduction to the Handbook on Fear and Anxiety Robert Blanchard, D. Caroline Blanchard, Guy Griebel and David Nutt Section 2. Animal models of Anxiety, Fear and Defense Theoretical approaches to the modeling of anxiety in animals Neil McNaughton and Hélio Zangrossi Jr., The use of conditioning tasks to model fear and anxiety Michael S. Fanselow and Ravikumar Ponnusamy Extinction of fear: from animal studies to clinical interventions Karyn M. Myers and Michael Davis Defensive behaviors, fear and anxiety D. Caroline Blanchard and Robert Blanchard Unconditioned models of fear and anxiety Yoav Litvin, Nathan S. Pentkowski, Roger L. Pobbe, D. Caroline Blanchard and Robert J. Blanchard Section 3. Neural Systems for Anxiety, Fear, and Defense Brain mechanisms of Pavlovian and instrumental aversive conditioning Christopher K. Cain and Joseph E. LeDoux Neural systems activated in response to predators and partial predator stimuli Newton Sabino Canteras A behavioral and neural systems comparison of unconditioned and conditioned defensive behavior Newton S. Canteras and D. Caroline Blanchard Section 4. The Pharmacology of Anxiety, Fear, and Defense Peptide receptor ligands to treat anxiety disorders Thomas Steckler Subtype-selective GABAA/benzodiazepine receptor ligands for the treatment of anxiety disorders James K. Rowlett Modulation of anxiety behaviors by 5-HT-interacting drugs Francisco Silveira

Details

No. of pages:
450
Language:
English
Copyright:
© 2008
Published:
Imprint:
Elsevier Science
eBook ISBN:
9780080559520
Print ISBN:
9780444530653

About the editors

David Nutt

Affiliations and Expertise

Edmond J Safra Chair in Neuropsychopharmacology, Imperial College London, UK

Reviews

The Handbook of Anxiety and Fear is a lengthy and thorough review of the experimental, neurobiological, pharmacological, and clinical components of anxiety and fear. The text is written at a high level of detail, and the concepts within are supported by lengthy reference sections. This text ... does a wonderful job in covering the scientific basics of the topics.... there is strong coverage of basic science and the current state of knowledge in human clinical scenarios. This text is best suited to professionals and advanced graduate students who research anxiety disorders. Professionals wishing to review the scientific bases of the anxiety disorders would do well to include this book in their personal libraries.
-James J. Jakubow, in PsyCritiques April 1, 2009, Release 13, Article 7

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