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Ongoing Research Efforts |
Increasing attention is also being paid to the benefits of exercise, and empirical evidence is now corroborating the anecdotal evidence to suggest that voluntary exercise can reduce anxiety and improve both pharmacological and behavioral treatment outcomes. Despite this interest, there is currently very little basic research examining the effects of voluntary exercise on the physiological processes thought to contribute to anxiety. Projects are underway to examine the conditions under which voluntary exercise produces a reduction in anxiety and the contribution of central serotonin to the anxiolytic effect of voluntary exercise. |
Up to the present time there has been no systematic analysis of the neural circuits involved in the learned reduction of fear produced by safety signals. The requirements of a hypothetical neural circuit for feature-negative discrimination of fear must have at least three principle components. (1) It must have sufficient afferent sensory input to permit detection and processing of the inhibitory feature (i.e., a “sensory limb”). (2) The neural circuit must have a structure (or structures) that detects the significance of the inhibitory feature. This portion of the circuit must be both activated by the inhibitory feature and informed that the conditioned stimulus is present but that the aversive unconditioned stimulus has not occurred. (3) The neural circuit must be capable of reducing the expression of fear. Hence, a portion of the neural circuit for feature-negative discrimination must interact with the fear production circuit. This is akin to a “response limb” of the circuit where the “response” is the reduction of fear. Studies are currently underway to identify the three principle components of the neural circuit for feature-negative discrimination of fear. |