Existing anxiety-reducing drugs are not always effective for all patients and often have unwanted side effects. Understanding the brain networks and mechanisms which underlie fear and anxiety may offer a new approach to developing better treatments for anxiety disorders.
Neuroscientists from Bristol’s School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, sought to investigate how the brain’s cerebellum, which is connected to many brain regions associated with survival networks, influences activity in another area of the brain called the periaqueductal grey (PAG). This PAG area lies at the hub of central networks that co-ordinate survival mechanisms including fear-evoked coping responses such as ‘freezing’.
The study’s findings provide new insights into the way the PAG encodes fear memory and also provides evidence that the cerebellum is an additional key structure in the list of brain regions that contribute to the fear/anxiety network and offers a novel target for treating psychological conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Wellcome-funded study is published in the journal eLife.
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