Flight and other active coping behaviors are unconditional responses to proximate threat, whereas passive coping strategies such as freezing are conditioned responses to distal stimuli predictive of danger. These strategies are modulated by the (cognitive) apprehension of the environment and probability of success, eg, whether or not there is a route of escape. Thus, when an animal faces a predator, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical freezing is preferentially activated when the source of known danger is still far away. When danger gets closer, and the stimulus passes through some critical “psychometric” distance, it becomes a true unconditional stimulus and a flight pattern is activated.34 Coping strategies provide a new, interesting theoretical
framework for models investigating the role of individual differences Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in vulnerability to anxiety disorders, and their genetic and epigenetic determinants. Fear conditioning Learning the relationships between aversive events and environmental stimuli which predict these events is essential
for survival. The neurobiological bases of fear conditioning have been extensively investigated during the last decades.35 , 36 The major aspects of the relationship between conditioned fear and anxiety are the fact that a fearful response can be associated with specific cues (conditional Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical stimuli, CS), and that this learned association can be “unlearned,” ie, not forgotten, but actively repressed.37 This fear conditioning (or learned fear) Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical paradigm is highly relevant for some anxiety disorders, eg, phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in particular, and is used in several animal models. The critical stage appears to be not the training (conditioning) phase, when the conditional
(CS) and unconditional (US) stimuli are presented in a meaningful temporal relationship, but the extinction phase, when the CS is presented alone (without the reinforcement stimulus), during the time Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical necessary for extinction to occur; some individuals fail to repress the memory of fear and show all the behavioral and physiological signs Venetoclax purchase normally triggered in the presence not of an actual threat. Thus, fear conditioning provides another relevant theoretical framework for translational studies on anxiety disorders. Conflict Motivational conflict This can be a major source of anxiety. Indeed, making a wrong decision in the face of danger can be fatal, and having to decide on the right way of doing constitutes a form of “psychological threat.” More frequently, the consequences of a wrong choice are not life-threatening, but can change an inidividual’s life (losing one’s partner, territory, or social status), or be only unpleasant (being momentarily deprived of food). In any case, making a decision when the consequences are unpredictable is a source of stress. Frustration Frustration can also be a source of anxiety, could be considered as a particular form of conflict.