Affective neuroscience and the development of social anxiety disorder

Recent studies on the familial distribution and longitudinal outcome of SAD emphasize developmental aspects of the syndrome, consistent with the developmental psychopathology perspective. Key questions in this area concern factors that mediate familial transmission and that predict outcome. Prior studies provide incomplete answers to these questions. Recent studies in affective neuroscience suggest potential avenues for answering these questions. As reviewed in the current article, fMRI studies of face processing provide examples of such potentially informative research directions.