Social stress is associated with altered immunity and higher incidence of anxiety-related disorders. Repeated social defeat (RSD) is a murine stressor that primes peripheral myeloid cells, activates microglia, and induces anxiety-like behavior. Here we show that RSD-induced anxiety-like behavior corresponded with an exposure-dependent increase in circulating monocytes (CD11b(+)/SSC(lo)/Ly6C(hi)...

Anxiety prepares an organism for dealing with threats by recruiting cognitive resources to process information about the threat, and by engaging physiological systems to prepare a response. Heightened trait anxiety is associated with biases in both these processes: high trait-anxious individuals tend to report heightened risk perceptions, and inappropriate engagement in danger mitigation behavi...

Recently, the medial habenula-interpeduncular (MHb-IPN) axis has been hypothesized to modulate anxiety although neuronal populations and molecular mechanisms regulating affective behaviors in this circuit are unknown. Here we show that MHb cholinergic neuron activity directly regulates anxiety-like behavior. Optogenetic silencing of MHb cholinergic IPN inputs reduced anxiety-like behavior in mi...

We recently reported involvement of oxidative stress in anxiety-like behavior of rats. Others in separate studies have demonstrated a link between oxidative stress and hypertension as well as with type 2 diabetes/insulin resistance. In the present study, we have tested a putative role of oxidative stress in anxiety-like behavior, hypertension and insulin resistance using a rat model of oxidativ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Intolerance of uncertainty and the overestimation of threat contribute to the maintenance of anxiety; however, the interaction between uncertainty and threat perception has not been examined empirically. The current study examined the extent to which explicitness of uncertainty is involved in perceptions of, and responses to, scenarios about threatening situations. M...

Background & Aims: children and adolescents can use their maximum of mental capacity and potential capabilities, if they benefit from a positive attitude towards their surrounding environment and a strong incentive for being active in the community. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship of social anxiety including social phobia, social interaction and maladaptive behavior with s...

anxiety is an emotion characterized by an unpleasant manner of inner distress, often accompanied by nervous behavior. anxiety is related to the particular behaviors of fight or flight responses. the amygdala, the insula and anterior cingulate cortex seem to be critical, and all three have been referred to as the fear network .the amygdala which plays a fundamental role in neural network of fear...

We evaluated if the theory of planned behavior explains students activity in a web-based learning environment. Two of the considerations of the theory, attitude toward the behavior (behavioral beliefs and outcome evaluations) and perceived behavioral control (computer selfefficacy), were evaluated. The scope was also widened to students approaches to learning and anxiety in computer using situa...

This study explores the types of nonverbal behavior exhibited by socially anxious users over the course of an interview with virtual agent counselors that talked about themselves. The counselors provided self-disclosure using human back stories or computer back stories. The video data was collected from a previous study. We defined nine types of nonverbal behavior to investigate the association...