Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Hello Gabriel,
At the same time, however, Anxious isn’t an easy read. Many sections
involved deciphering neural circuit diagrams, trying to keep track of
countless acronyms for minuscule brain regions. This essay is my attempt
to summarize some of the main insights of the book to help my own
understanding of anxiety and for anyone else who wants to worry less.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 1/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
This has led to a wave of reporting that center our feelings of fear inside
this little knob of brain tissue. This is unfortunate, in LeDoux’s estimation,
because it’s not at all clear that signals processed by the amygdala are
conscious at all.
Instead, LeDoux prefers the term “survival circuit” since, while it’s clear that
the amygdala is involved in responding to threats, it’s not clear that activity
here directly generates conscious feelings. Fear, as an experience, likely
happens elsewhere, possibly in higher cortical areas of the brain that work
with attention, thinking, imagining our futures and remembering our pasts.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 2/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
Put another way, if a threat falls in the amygdala, but there’s nobody there
to feel it, does it actually make you fear? To LeDoux, anxiety you don’t
consciously experience isn’t anxiety at all.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 3/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 4/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
If threat circuitry isn’t directly conscious then, how does it impact our
experience of anxiety which very much is conscious? In this case it’s likely
that while the threat circuitry may not result in conscious experiences itself,
it may trigger other mental processes which do cause us to worry.
One way this has been suggested is through bodily feedback. You
experience some fearful stimulus, your amygdala and related areas react
quickly and increases your heart rate. You feel your heart beating faster
and your mind interprets this as fear.
Still, the coupling between threat-circuitry and feelings of fear is not perfect.
As already discussed, it’s possible to activate the threat-circuitry mildly
without creating any conscious awareness (although behavioral responses
are still observable). Conversely, it might also be possible to feel anxious
even if there are no threat-response circuits firing at all.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 5/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
The overall feeling of dread and constant worrying that characterizes a lot
of anxiety may not need a trigger from threat circuits to become active. It
may be a purely higher-order mental phenomenon. As a result,
interventions that work by clamping down on threat-circuits may not help
much in these cases.
For instance, LeDoux notes that drug companies haven’t always had great
success at discovering anti-anxiety medications. When something does
help with anxiety, it’s often discovered by accident, rather than design.
The separation of threat circuitry from conscious fear may partly explain
why. Drugs are often selected by their ability to reduce fear-like behavior in
laboratory animals. In doing so, however, they may be operating on
nonconscious rather than conscious circuitry. This may not help as much
when the goal is to treat conscious feelings of anxiety.
Exposure Therapy
This perspective might also have implications for improving therapy as
well. Exposure therapy is a fairly successful therapy for combating anxiety.
It works by exposing a patient to the object of their fears. When they
experience fear but nothing bad follows, the fear will be a little less next
time. LeDoux notes that around 70% of patients do get some help from
exposure therapy.
One reason for this seems to be that the memory for threat and the
memory for safety are actually two distinct neural circuits. When you initial
learn the threat, and then later extinguish the threat circuit through
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 6/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
exposure, this doesn’t work by erasing the original memory, but by creating
a second memory designed to suppress the first one. It’s as if, instead of
erasing the fearful picture, you’ve merely painted over it with a fresh coat of
paint, one that might get scratched off later by accident.
Interestingly this memory for safety that suppresses the original threat
response may be more context-sensitive than the threat circuit itself. If you
learn not to panic at a social gathering while with your friend, you may still
panic when that person isn’t there to accompany you. Reducing this
context-sensitivity requires many different exposures in varying situations,
otherwise the experience may not transfer.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 7/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
In nature, this pattern probably works fairly well. A rabbit that almost gets
eaten while near a certain watering hole may never go back there. This
may result in a little thirst, but it’s better than being eat by a crocodile.
The problem is that the avoidance strategy can work too well. It may be
that the situation you’re afraid of is actually safe. By avoiding it, however,
you never experience the disconfirming evidence that you don’t need to be
afraid. In some cases, avoidance itself becomes worse than the thing
you’re afraid of, as you take increasingly costly steps to avoid situations
that might be scary.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 8/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
According to LeDoux, these two different aspects work on the two different
systems that contribute to feelings of anxiety. Exposure targets the threat-
response circuitry, a largely nonconscious response. Only change
someone’s beliefs, but leave the threat circuits untouched and someone
may still be paralyzed with anxiety even though they know it’s completely
irrational. For instance, you may “know” that standing in a glass elevator is
totally safe, but be petrified looking down over the edge.
This book also echos another neuroscience book I reviewed earlier, The
Hungry Brain. In that book, sophisticated circuits control how much we eat
which can explain why dieting is so hard. Like anxiety, these processes
happen without our awareness, yet seem to exert incredible sway over our
lives.
These questions don’t have easy answers. But I hope by exploring these,
we might uncover new tools to worry less.
___
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A165129354… 10/11
9/12/2019 Gmail - The neuroscience of anxiety
Best,
-Scott
Unsubscribe | Update your profile | #83-1146 Pacific Blvd., Vancouver, British Columbia V6Z 2X7
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permthid=thread-f%3A1651293549457479203&simpl=msg-f%3A1651293549… 11/11