At least
weekly some new piece of brain function information surfaces. Take recent
studies by researchers at MIT’s Piower Institute for Learning and Memory, for
example. It has been known for some time that
memory is impacted both by the hippocampi and the amygdalae, part of the
brain’s limbic system. It wasn’t known, however, how (or even if) these little
brain organs communicated with each other in relation to anxiety. In studies of
mice, the BLA or basolateral amygdala and the vHPC or ventral hippocampus were
both implicated in mediating anxiety-related behaviors. “Researchers showed
that activation of BLA-vHPC synapses acutely and robustly increased
anxiety-related behaviors, while inhibition of BLA-vHPC synapses decreased
anxiety-related behaviors.” My guess is that the next step will be to figure
out how to practically apply this knowledge to help treat anxiety-related
disorders. Estimates are that in any given year at least 40 million Americans
are impacted by some type of anxiety disorder.
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