Transcript The Emotional Brain - NYU Langone Medical Center

SOLVING ANXIETY
Joseph LeDoux
20 million Americans (15%) suffer from anxiety disorders
Anxiety exacerbates all other mental and medical problems
How Do We Prevent and Treat Anxiety?
Economic cost: > $50 billion per year (0.4 GDP)
Investing in the prevention
treatment
of anxiety, especially in
We go and
to the
source.
children, is the most efficient way to improve the health and wellbeing of our society
NEURAL CIRCUIT
MOLECULAR MECHANISMS
FIGHT FLIGHT RESPONSE
Fear Conditioning
SYNAPSE
THREATENING
STIMULUS
CS Pathway
Somatosensory
Cortex
Auditory
Cortex
Auditory
Thalamus LA
AMYGDALA
US Pathway
Somatosens
Thalamus
B
AMYGDALA
CE
ITC
FEAR
RESPONSES
tone
cs
CG
LH PVN
tone
tone+shock
FREEZING
ANS
MUSCLE
TENSION
BLOOD
RESPIRATION
PRESSURE
us
HORMONES
Present and Future Goals
Erasing traumatic memory
drugs that eliminate memory
in amygdala after remembering
Finding neuronal markers of
individual differences in fear
Structural, physiological, and
genetic correlates of extreme
fear in the amygdala
Discovering new ways to
help children and adults
reduce anxiety so that
anxiety disorders don’t develop
Dampening amygdala activity
by stress reduction techniques
(controlled breathing)- shuts
down fight-flight response
Drugs or gene therapy that
targets the amygdala
The Emotional Brain Institute
a research team focused on amygdala
fear and anxiety
NYU Washington Square
NYU Langone Medical Center
NY State Nathan Kline Institute