[Recent trends in psychophysiology of anxiety (author's transl)]

Current views on anxiety and emotions have been profoundly influenced by research data coming from the field of psychoneuroendocrinology. While early work concentrated on identification of hormonal correlates of fear and anxiety and the question of their specificity, most authors now agree that the physiological phenomena are more a manifestation of increased activation of the arousal system than of any emotional state per se, so that the interest has shifted to the identification of the factors responsible for physiological activation. Over the past few years there has been an increasing awareness of the extreme sensitivity of hormonal systems to psychological and social factors. Pituitary-adrenal hormones for instance are maxillary released under conditions of high novelty and uncertainty, with little control ability and no feedback information following attempts to control the situation. Many experimental studies have attempted to clarify the contribution of peripheral hormonal responses to the cognitive evaluation of emotions and to the storage and retrieval of emotional experiences. This field is now rapidly growing with the increasing number of neuropeptides shown to modulate adaptive behaviour. Most significant in terms of pathophysiology is the present concern for understanding the fundamental psychological processes (defense and coping) which enable the subject to dampen the physiological activation normally resulting from internal and external arousing stimuli. Such a knowledge should help to clarify the mechanisms leading from a failure of adaptation to mental and somatic diseases.