Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder

有研究表明，焦虑症患者的杏仁核活动阈值低于健康人。然而，尽管这一假说立竿见影地可信，但对它的检验却相对较少。具体地说，关于焦虑症患者在已知与杏仁核有关的指标上的表现的探索很少。 尽管广泛性焦虑障碍(GAD)和社交焦虑障碍(SAD)的高发病率使问题复杂化，但这两种障碍双重分离的事实表明，它们是由于可分离的神经认知系统中的功能障碍造成的。我们认为高反应性杏仁核假说更有可能与GAD的解释有关。相反，SAD可能是由于对社会威胁做出反应并招募外侧眼眶额叶皮质的系统中单位的激活阈值降低所致。因此，目前的项目将确定GAD和SAD患者在杏仁核已知发挥作用的措施上的表现，以及在招募眼眶外侧额叶皮质和社会反应逆转系统方面的表现。此外，两项拟议的神经成像研究将直接评估这两个系统在两个患者群体中的神经反应。该项目旨在提供明确的数据，为未来对这两种疾病所涉及的病理进行理论研究提供信息。

There have been suggestions that the threshold for amygdala activity is lower in individuals with anxiety disorders than in healthy individuals. However, despite its immediate plausibility, there have been relatively few tests of this hypothesis. Specifically, there have been very few explorations of the performance of patients with anxiety disorders on measures known to implicate the amygdala. Although the high co-morbidity of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) complicates the issue, the fact that the disorders doubly dissociate suggests that they are due to dysfunctional activity in separable neuro-cognitive systems. We would suggest that the hyper-responsive amygdala hypothesis is more likely to be linked to the explanation of GAD. In contrast, SAD may be due to reduced activation thresholds for units in a system that responds to social threat and which recruits lateral orbital frontal cortex. Thus, the current project will determine the performance of patients with GAD and SAD on measures in which the amygdala is known to play a role and also in measures that recruit lateral orbital frontal cortex and the system for social response reversal. In addition, two proposed neuro-imaging studies will directly assess neural responses in these two systems in both patient populations. The project aims to provide clear data that will inform future theorizing on the pathology implicated in these two disorders.