THE ESSENTIAL
- Women are twice as affected as men by anxiety disorders.
- In general, anxiety disorders begin during childhood or adolescence.
15% of adults aged 18 to 65 present with severe anxiety disorders in a given year and 21% will present during their lifetime, according to the High Authority of Health. But, according to a study published in the journal The Journal of Neuroscienceresearchers might have found a solution for these patients: they discovered that the brain had a sort of system for cleaning up unpleasant ideas.
Different anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders can be defined as strong and lasting anxiety that is not due to real danger. The daily life of people who are affected is thus very disturbed because they live in almost permanent anxiety, which they have great difficulty calming down. Anxiety disorders include phobias, agoraphobia, social or separation anxiety disorder, etc. To take care of them, practitioners generally offer psychotherapy and appropriate treatments that reduce symptoms.
An automatic scanning system
During their study, the researchers studied the brains of twenty-four participants using electroencephalograms and a brain imaging system. Thus, they discovered that humans had a system of scanning negative ideas that would automatically trigger when these presented themselves.
Inhibit hippocampal activity
“When unwanted memories (intrude in our brain)a control process engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to inhibit hippocampal activity and shut it down.”explain the researchers.
Towards a new treatment for people with anxiety disorders
Scientists now intend to continue their research to understand the reasons for this process. Indeed, for the moment, they have only observed this action of the brain but do not know what types of thoughts precisely can trigger it. If they succeed, this discovery may make it possible to develop new solutions to contain the dark thoughts of people suffering from anxiety disorders.
