Modeling anxiety in healthy humans: a key intermediate bridge between basic and clinical sciences.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Animal models are crucial for understanding anxiety disorders but have limitations in capturing complex human experiences like worry.
• Existing models struggle to screen novel treatments effectively due to differences between species.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the Experimental Psychopathology approach as a complementary method to animal models for studying anxiety in humans.
• To outline a methodological framework for using experimental models of anxiety in healthy subjects to bridge basic and clinical research.
• To highlight the potential of this approach in understanding psychopathology, treatment mechanisms, and identifying therapeutic targets.

Main Methods:

• Reviewing the strengths and limitations of animal models of anxiety.
• Discussing the necessity of human models for probing higher-order cognitive processes in anxiety.
• Presenting a five-step methodological approach: task selection, neurocircuit identification, anxiety induction, hypothesis generation for patient studies, and treatment evaluation.

Main Results:

• Experimental psychopathology can bridge the gap between animal research and clinical studies.
• This approach allows for the identification of neurocircuits potentially altered by anxiety through combined anxiety-induction and cognitive tasks.
• The proposed methodology provides a structured way to investigate anxiety mechanisms and screen treatments.

Conclusions:

• The Experimental Psychopathology approach offers a valuable method to overcome limitations of animal models in anxiety research.
• It facilitates the study of complex, human-specific anxiety processes and guides the development of targeted treatments.
• This framework supports hypothesis generation for clinical studies and the evaluation of novel therapeutic strategies.