Measuring maladaptive avoidance: from animal models to clinical anxiety

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Avoidance of danger is crucial for survival.
• Maladaptive avoidance, characterized by overestimating threats, is a core feature of anxiety disorders, PTSD, and OCD, leading to psychosocial impairment.
• Current laboratory measures often assess adaptive avoidance, not the maladaptive type seen in clinical populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review existing paradigms for measuring avoidance behavior and its neural mechanisms.
• To propose a new framework for understanding maladaptive avoidance by differentiating underlying neurobehavioral processes.
• To guide the development of novel interventions targeting specific neurobehavioral mechanisms of maladaptive avoidance.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing human and animal models for measuring avoidance behavior and neural mechanisms.
• Analysis of how current paradigms relate to threat appraisal, habitual avoidance, and trait avoidance tendency.
• Proposal of an adapted framework to differentiate underlying processes of maladaptive avoidance.

Main Results:

• Maladaptive avoidance behavior is posited to depend on altered threat appraisal, habitual avoidance, and trait avoidance tendency.
• Existing measurement paradigms may not adequately differentiate these underlying neurobehavioral processes.
• Heterogeneity in these processes presents challenges for objective measurement.

Conclusions:

• A novel framework is proposed to enhance the translational understanding of maladaptive avoidance.
• Adapting existing paradigms and applying them across clinical populations can differentiate underlying mechanisms.
• This approach aims to inform the development of targeted interventions for anxiety-related disorders.