Discovery of novel brain fear mechanisms offers target for anxiety-reducing drugs

Press release issued: 16 March 2022

A new target in the brain which underpins the eliciting of anxiety and fear behaviours such as ‘freezing’ has been identified by neuroscientists. The University of Bristol researchers say the discovery of a key pathway in the brain, published in the journal eLife, offers a potential new drug target for treating anxiety and psychological disorders, which affect an estimated 264-million people worldwide.

Existing anxiety-reducing drugs are not always effective for all patients and often have unwanted side effects. Understanding the brain networks and mechanisms which underlie fear and anxiety may offer a new approach to developing better treatments for anxiety disorders.

Neuroscientists from Bristol’s School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, sought to investigate how the brain’s cerebellum, which is connected to many brain regions associated with survival networks, influences activity in another area of the brain called the periaqueductal grey (PAG). This PAG area lies at the hub of central networks that co-ordinate survival mechanisms including fear-evoked coping responses such as ‘freezing’.

Read the full University of Bristol press release

Paper: ‘Cerebellar modulation of fear behaviour and memory encoding in the PAG’ by CL Lawrenson et al in eLife.