UW STUDY: INHERITED BRAIN PATHWAY UNDERLIES THE RISK FOR ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

Ned Kalin

UW STUDY: INHERITED BRAIN PATHWAY UNDERLIES THE RISK FOR ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION

In studies of young rhesus monkeys, researchers from the University of Wisconsin Department of Psychiatry have discovered brain pathways that underlie children’s vulnerability to develop anxiety and depression later in life.

Importantly, the researchers from the UW HealthEmotions Research Institute determined that young monkeys inherit one of the pathways critical to early life anxious temperament.

The study, published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, offers insight into how anxiety develops, its underlying brain alterations, how it is transmitted from parents to children, and may provide targets for future therapies.

Ned Kalin, MD, Hedberg professor and chairman of psychiatry, and colleagues, used brain imaging techniques also used in human studies to look at the brains of hundreds of related monkeys, that vary in their levels of anxious temperament.

 

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