Anxiety Disorders The Role Of Serotonin

Anxiety disorders have long been a research subject for scientists in different areas of inquiry, and the particular role of serotonin – the neurotransmitter which has probably most captured the imagination of laymen and academics alike – is as elusive as the clinical aspects of serotonergic medications. Why are drugs acting at certain serotonin receptors efficacious against generalized anxiety disorder, but not panic disorder? Why is the inverse true for monoamine oxidase inhibitors? These clinically relevant issues are clarified by the neurochemical, anatomical and physiological organization of the serotonergic system. In this book, the author summarizes the latest findings regarding the role of serotonin in modulating the activity of brain regions which organize behavioral patterns associated with fear, anxiety and stress. The emergent picture is one of far greater complexity than previously thought: while the serotonergic innervation of those brain regions arises from the same structure – the dorsal raphe nucleus – that structure is not homogeneous from anatomical, physiological and neurochemical points of view, nor are its projections to the cerebral aversive and behavioral inhibition systems. The diverse findings which compose this picture of complexity – whether they arise from developmental neurobiology, electrophysiology, neurochemistry, neuroendocrinology, neuropsychopharmacology or behavioral neuroscience – are integrated in this book. Advanced undergraduate, graduate students, and researchers will benefit from the information. The result sheds light on many important questions regarding the neuroanatomical, pharmacological and functional aspects of the role of serotonin in anxiety disorders, and points to future avenues of research.

Social anxiety disorder is persistent fear of (or anxiety about) one or more social situations that is out of proportion to the actual threat posed by the situation and can be severely detrimental to quality of life. Only a minority of people with social anxiety disorder receive help. Effective treatments do exist and this book aims to increase identification and assessment to encourage more people to access interventions. Covers adults, children and young people and compares the effects of pharmacological and psychological interventions. Commissioned by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). The CD-ROM contains all of the evidence on which the recommendations are based, presented as profile tables (that analyse quality of data) and forest plots (plus, info on using/interpreting forest plots). This material is not available in print anywhere else.

A discussion of current strategies for the assessment of central serotonin system function as well as data regarding the various serotonergic hypotheses for different behavioural diseases, such as autism, schizophrenia and major psychiatric disorders.

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, often cited as 5-HT) is one of the major excitatory neurotransmitter, and the serotonergic system is one of the best studied and understood transmitter systems. It is crucially involved in the organization of virtually all behaviours and in the regulation of emotion and mood. Alterations in the serotonergic system, induced by e.g. learning or pathological processes, underlie behavioural plasticity and changes in mood, which can finally results in abnormal behaviour and psychiatric conditions. Not surprisingly, the serotonergic system and its functional components appear to be targets for a multitude of pharmacological treatments - examples of very successful drugs targeting the serotoninergic system include Prozac and Zoloft. The last decades of research have not only fundamentally expanded our view on serotonin but also revealed in much more detail an astonishing complexity of this system, which comprises a multitude of receptors and signalling pathways. A detailed view on its role in basal, but also complex, behaviours emerged, and, was presented in a number of single review articles. Although much is known now, the serotonergic system is still a fast growing field of research contributing to our present understanding of the brains function during normal and disturbed behaviour. This handbook aims towards a detailed and comprehensive overview over the many facets of behavioural serotonin research. As such, it will provide the most up to date and thorough reading concerning the serotonergic systems control of behaviour and mood in animals and humans. The goal is to create a systematic overview and first hand reference that can be used by students and scholars alike in the fields of genetics, anatomy, pharmacology, physiology, behavioural neuroscience, pathology, and psychiatry. The chapters in this book will be written by leading scientists in this field. Most of them have already written excellent reviews in their field of expertise. The book is divided in 4 sections. After an historical introduction, illustrating the growth of ideas about serotonin function in behaviour of the last forty years, section A will focus on the functional anatomy of the serotonergic system. Section B provides a review of the neurophysiology of the serotonergic system and its single components. In section C the involvement of serotonin in behavioural organization will be discussed in great detail, while section D deals with the role of serotonin in behavioural pathologies and psychiatric disorders. The first handbook broadly discussing the behavioral neurobiology of the serotonorgic transmitter system Co-edited by one of the pioneers and opinion leaders of the past decades, Barry Jacobs (Princeton), with an international list (10 countries) of highly regarded contributors providing over 50 chapters, and including the leaders in the field in number of articles and citations: K. P. Lesch, T. Sharp, A. Caspi, P. Blier, G.K. Aghajanian, E. C. Azmitia, and others The only integrated and complete resource on the market containing the best information integrating international research, providing a global perspective to an international community Of great value not only for researchers and experts, but also for students and clinicians as a background reference

Serotonin plays an important role in mediating mood and anxiety disorders. This volume reviews neuronal circuitry relevant to a number of these conditions, such as major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and social anxiety. This text addresses the relationship between neuronal circuitry and serotonergic agents and how those agents are effective in the treatment of these disorders. Psychiatrists, neurologists and pharmacologists will benefit from this volume.

The brain is the most complex organ in our body. Indeed, it is perhaps the most complex structure we have ever encountered in nature. Both structurally and functionally, there are many peculiarities that differentiate the brain from all other organs. The brain is our connection to the world around us and by governing nervous system and higher function, any disturbance induces severe neurological and psychiatric disorders that can have a devastating effect on quality of life. Our understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of the brain has improved dramatically in the last two decades. In particular, the critical role of cations, including magnesium, has become evident, even if incompletely understood at a mechanistic level. The exact role and regulation of magnesium, in particular, remains elusive, largely because intracellular levels are so difficult to routinely quantify. Nonetheless, the importance of magnesium to normal central nervous system activity is self-evident given the complicated homeostatic mechanisms that maintain the concentration of this cation within strict limits essential for normal physiology and metabolism. There is also considerable accumulating evidence to suggest alterations to some brain functions in both normal and pathological conditions may be linked to alterations in local magnesium concentration. This book, containing chapters written by some of the foremost experts in the field of magnesium research, brings together the latest in experimental and clinical magnesium research as it relates to the central nervous system. It offers a complete and updated view of magnesiums involvement in central nervous system function and in so doing, brings together two main pillars of contemporary neuroscience research, namely providing an explanation for the molecular mechanisms involved in brain function, and emphasizing the connections between the molecular changes and behavior. It is the untiring efforts of those magnesium researchers who have dedicated their lives to unraveling the mysteries of magnesiums role in biological systems that has inspired the collation of this volume of work.