dthompson

Dissecting the Neural Circuits of Hyperarousal States in Psychiatry 2019 Award: $200,000 Anxiety is a complex state consisting of cognitive, emotional, and physiological components driven by a network across multiple brain regions. In this project, we plan on studying the neural circuits that regulate the hyperarousal state that often precedes the cognitive and emotional changes. Establishing the precise neural circuits involved in hyperarousal is critical to design novel therapeutic interventions for anxiety disorders. Need/Problem: Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the United States, but we still poorly understand how specific neural circuits in the brain are affected during these disorders. Anxiety disorders are often characterized by an amplified arousal response to anxiogenic stimuli (hyperarousal). Grant Summary: Using pre-clinical mouse models we will use state-of-the-art microscopy techniques to visualize and record the activity of hundreds of individual [...]