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The biology of mood and anxiety disorders

 We are witnessing a dramatic shift in the foundations of mental health and psychiatry, where research into the biological underpinnings of psychopathology is becoming increasingly important. This article collection aims to focus on all areas relevant to the mood and anxiety disorders at the level of their underlying mechanisms, including but not limited to: pathophysiology, predictive risk markers, treatment predictors, individual differences and developmental trajectories of mood and anxiety disorders. We welcome further research submissions on these topics. If you would like to submit your manuscript for consideration in the series, please contact journals@biomedcentral.com.

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  2. Depressive Disorders (DD) are a great financial and social burden. Females display 70% higher rate of depression than males and more than 30% of these patients do not respond to conventional medications. Thus ...

    Authors: Eli Iacob, Kathleen C Light, Scott C Tadler, Howard R Weeks, Andrea T White, Ronald W Hughen, Timothy A VanHaitsma, Lowry Bushnell and Alan R Light
    Citation: BMC Psychiatry 2013 13:273
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  3. Several mental illnesses, including anxiety, can manifest during development, with onsets in late childhood. Understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of risk for anxiety is of crucial importance for ear...

    Authors: Tanja Jovanovic, Karin Maria Nylocks and Kaitlyn L Gamwell
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:17
    Content type: Review Published on:

  4. Numerous genome-wide gene expression studies of bipolar disorder (BP) have been carried out. These studies are heterogeneous, underpowered and use overlapping samples. We conducted a systematic review of these...

    Authors: Fayaz Seifuddin, Mehdi Pirooznia, Jennifer T Judy, Fernando S Goes, James B Potash and Peter P Zandi
    Citation: BMC Psychiatry 2013 13:213
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  5. Extinction learning is proposed to be one key mechanism of action underlying exposure-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in specific phobia. Beyond that, cognitive reappraisal, one important strategy to ...

    Authors: Andrea Hermann, Verena Leutgeb, Wilfried Scharmüller, Dieter Vaitl, Anne Schienle and Rudolf Stark
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:16
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Previous studies have found high levels of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder among women survivors of human trafficking. No previous research has described risk factors for di...

    Authors: Melanie Abas, Nicolae V Ostrovschi, Martin Prince, Viorel I Gorceag, Carolina Trigub and Siân Oram
    Citation: BMC Psychiatry 2013 13:204
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  7. Although several psychological and pharmacological treatment options are available for anxiety disorders, not all patients respond well to each option. Furthermore, given the relatively long duration of adequa...

    Authors: Lisa M Shin, F Caroline Davis, Michael B VanElzakker, Mary K Dahlgren and Stacey J Dubois
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:15
    Content type: Review Published on:

  8. Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is a common and debilitating condition that typically manifests in adolescence. Here we describe cognitive factors engaged by brain-imaging tasks, which model the peer-based socia...

    Authors: Johanna M Jarcho, Ellen Leibenluft, Olga Lydia Walker, Nathan A Fox, Daniel S Pine and Eric E Nelson
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:14
    Content type: Review Published on:

  9. Various neuropsychiatric conditions, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), are characterized by deficient fear extinction, but individuals differ greatly in risk for these. While there is growing evi...

    Authors: Kathryn MacPherson, Nigel Whittle, Marguerite Camp, Ozge Gunduz-Cinar, Nicolas Singewald and Andrew Holmes
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:13
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. Somatoform dissociation is a specific form of dissociation with somatic manifestations represented in the form of ‘pseudoneurological’ symptoms due to disturbances or alterations of normal integrated functions...

    Authors: Petr Bob, Petra Selesova, Jiri Raboch and Lubomir Kukla
    Citation: BMC Psychiatry 2013 13:149
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  13. The serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene may play an important role in the onset and development of mental disorders. Past studies have tested whether a functional polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene linked promoter ...

    Authors: Qing-sen Ming, Yun Zhang, Qiao-lian Chai, Hai-yan Chen, Chan-juan Hou, Meng-cheng Wang, Yu-ping Wang, Lin Cai, Xiong-zhao Zhu, Jin-yao Yi and Shu-qiao Yao
    Citation: BMC Psychiatry 2013 13:142
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  14. Previous research suggests that individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) preferentially attend to trauma-related emotional stimuli and have difficulty completing unrelated concurrent tasks. Compar...

    Authors: Reid Offringa, Kathryn Handwerger Brohawn, Lindsay K Staples, Stacey J Dubois, Katherine C Hughes, Danielle L Pfaff, Michael B VanElzakker, F Caroline Davis and Lisa M Shin
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:10
    Content type: Brief Report Published on:

  17. Generalized social anxiety disorder (gSAD) is associated with a heightened neural sensitivity to signals that convey threat, as evidenced by exaggerated amygdala and/or insula activation when processing face s...

    Authors: Heide Klumpp, David Post, Mike Angstadt, Daniel A Fitzgerald and K Luan Phan
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:7
    Content type: Research Published on:

  18. In March, 2012 we held the first Mideast conference on “Depression and Anxiety Spectrum disorders: from basic science to the clinic and back”, at the University of Amman, Jordan. This event brought together bo...

    Authors: Suzanne N Haber, Ziad Safadi and Mohammad R Milad
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:6
    Content type: Meeting report Published on:

  19. Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is widely thought to be characterized by heightened behavioral and limbic reactivity to socio-emotional stimuli. However, although behavioral findings are clear, neural findings a...

    Authors: Michal Ziv, Philippe R Goldin, Hooria Jazaieri, Kevin S Hahn and James J Gross
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:5
    Content type: Research Published on:

  20. Evidence from animal and human studies imply the amygdala as the most critical structure involved in processing of fear-relevant stimuli. In phobias, the amygdala seems to play a crucial role in the pathogenes...

    Authors: Melanie S Fisler, Andrea Federspiel, Helge Horn, Thomas Dierks, Wolfgang Schmitt, Roland Wiest, Dominique J-F de Quervain and Leila M Soravia
    Citation: BMC Psychiatry 2013 13:70
    Content type: Research article Published on:

  21. Considerable variation is evident in response to psychological therapies for mood and anxiety disorders. Genetic factors alongside environmental variables and gene-environment interactions are implicated in th...

    Authors: Kathryn J Lester and Thalia C Eley
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:4
    Content type: Review Published on:

  22. Recent studies implicate individual differences in regulatory focus as contributing to self-regulatory dysfunction, particularly not responding to positive outcomes. How such individual differences emerge, howeve...

    Authors: Elena L Goetz, Ahmad R Hariri, Diego A Pizzagalli and Timothy J Strauman
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:3
    Content type: Research Published on:

  23. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating anxiety disorder. Surveys of the general population suggest that while 50-85% of Americans will experience a traumatic event in their lifetime, only 2-50%...

    Authors: Julia DiGangi, Guia Guffanti, Katie A McLaughlin and Karestan C Koenen
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:2
    Content type: Research Published on:

  25. Recent laboratory studies employing an extended sleep deprivation model have mapped sleep-related changes in behavior onto functional alterations in specific brain regions supporting emotion, suggesting possib...

    Authors: Jared D Minkel, Kristin McNealy, Peter J Gianaros, Emily M Drabant, James J Gross, Stephen B Manuck and Ahmad R Hariri
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:22
    Content type: Research Published on:

  26. PTSD is associated with reduction in hippocampal volume and abnormalities in hippocampal function. Hippocampal asymmetry has received less attention, but potentially could indicate lateralised differences in v...

    Authors: Timothy Hall, Cherrie Galletly, C Richard Clark, Melinda Veltmeyer, Linda J Metzger, Mark W Gilbertson, Scott P Orr, Roger K Pitman and Alexander McFarlane
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:21
    Content type: Research Published on:

  27. Although the neurobiological mechanisms underlying panic disorder (PD) are not yet clearly understood, increasing amount of evidence from animal and human studies suggests that the amygdala, which plays a pivo...

    Authors: Jieun E Kim, Stephen R Dager and In Kyoon Lyoo
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:20
    Content type: Review Published on:

  28. Research into neural mechanisms of drug abuse risk has focused on the role of dysfunction in neural circuits for reward. In contrast, few studies have examined the role of dysfunction in neural circuits of thr...

    Authors: Yuliya S Nikolova and Ahmad R Hariri
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:19
    Content type: Brief Report Published on:

  29. Bipolar disorder (BD) is a multi-factorial disorder caused by genetic and environmental influences. It has a large genetic component, with heritability estimated between 59-93%. Recent genome-wide association ...

    Authors: Melanie P Leussis, Jon M Madison and Tracey L Petryshen
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:18
    Content type: Review Published on:

  31. Anxiety disorders are characterized by specific emotions, thoughts and physiological responses. Little is known, however, about the relationship between psychological/personality indices of anxiety responses t...

    Authors: Karen G Martínez, Melissa Castro-Couch, José A Franco-Chaves, Brenda Ojeda-Arce, Gustavo Segura, Mohammed R Milad and Gregory J Quirk
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:16
    Content type: Research Published on:

  32. Lithium is considered by many as the gold standard medication in the management of bipolar disorder (BD). However, the clinical response to lithium is heterogeneous, and the molecular basis for this difference...

    Authors: Lori Lowthert, Janine Leffert, Aiping Lin, Sheila Umlauf, Kathleen Maloney, Anjana Muralidharan, Boris Lorberg, Shrikant Mane, Hongyu Zhao, Rajita Sinha, Zubin Bhagwagar and Robert Beech
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:15
    Content type: Research Published on:

  33. The field of non-pharmacological therapies for treatment resistant depression (TRD) is rapidly evolving and new somatic therapies are valuable options for patients who have failed numerous other treatments. A ...

    Authors: Cristina Cusin and Darin D Dougherty
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:14
    Content type: Review Published on:

    The Erratum to this article has been published in Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2013 3:1

  34. Research on biological correlates of psychopathology stands to benefit from being interwoven with an empirically based, quantitative model of mental disorders. Empirically-based classification approaches help ...

    Authors: Shani Ofrat and Robert F Krueger
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:13
    Content type: Perspective Published on:

  35. Adults with anxiety show biased categorization and avoidance of threats. Such biases may emerge through complex interplay between genetics and environments, occurring early in life. Research on threat biases i...

    Authors: Jennifer Y F Lau, Kevin Hilbert, Robert Goodman, Alice M Gregory, Daniel S Pine, Essi M Viding and Thalia C Eley
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:12
    Content type: Research Published on:

  36. Despite advances in neurobiological research on Major Depressive Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder, little is known about the neural functioning of individuals with comorbid depression/social anxiety. We ex...

    Authors: Christian E Waugh, J Paul Hamilton, Michael C Chen, Jutta Joormann and Ian H Gotlib
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:11
    Content type: Research Published on:

  37. Epigenetic modifications are those reversible, mitotically heritable alterations in genomic expression that occur independent of changes in gene sequence. Epigenetic studies have the potential to improve our u...

    Authors: Abdulrahman M El-Sayed, Michelle R Haloossim, Sandro Galea and Karestan C Koenen
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:10
    Content type: Review Published on:

  39. Most individuals exposed to a traumatic event do not develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), although many individuals may experience sub-clinical levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). There ...

    Authors: Scott P Orr, Natasha B Lasko, Michael L Macklin, Suzanne L Pineles, Yuchiao Chang and Roger K Pitman
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:8
    Content type: Research Published on:

  40. The amygdala, hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and brain-stem subregions are implicated in fear conditioning and extinction, and are brain regions known to be sexually dimorphic. We used functional...

    Authors: Kelimer Lebron-Milad, Brandon Abbs, Mohammed R Milad, Clas Linnman, Ansgar Rougemount-Bücking, Mohammed A Zeidan, Daphne J Holt and Jill M Goldstein
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:7
    Content type: Research Published on:

  41. The number of neuroimaging studies has grown exponentially in recent years and their results are not always consistent. Meta-analyses are helpful to summarize this vast literature and also offer insights that ...

    Authors: Joaquim Radua and David Mataix-Cols
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:6
    Content type: Review Published on:

  42. Potassium channels have been proposed to play a role in mechanisms of neural plasticity, and the Kv4.2 subunit has been implicated in the regulation of action-potential back-propagation to the dendrites. Alter...

    Authors: Carly Kiselycznyk, Dax A Hoffman and Andrew Holmes
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:5
    Content type: Research Published on:

  45. Depression in bipolar disorder has long been thought to be a state characterized by mental inactivity. However, recent research demonstrates that patients with bipolar disorder engage in rumination, a form of ...

    Authors: Sharmin Ghaznavi and Thilo Deckersbach
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:2
    Content type: Review Published on:

  46. Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) process information with a bias towards negative stimuli. However, little is known on the link between vulnerability to MDD and brain functional anomalies assoc...

    Authors: Francesco Amico, Angela Carballedo, Danuta Lisiecka, Andrew J Fagan, Gerard Boyle and Thomas Frodl
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2012 2:1
    Content type: Research Published on:

  47. Previous studies in healthy subjects have shown that strong attentional distraction prevents the amygdala from responding to threat stimuli. Here, we investigated the effects of attentional load on amygdala ac...

    Authors: Thomas Straube, Judith Lipka, Andreas Sauer, Martin Mothes-Lasch and Wolfgang HR Miltner
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2011 1:12
    Content type: Research Published on:

  48. Abnormalities of the striatum and frontal cortex have been reported consistently in studies of neural structure and function in major depressive disorder (MDD). Despite speculation that compromised connectivit...

    Authors: Daniella J Furman, J Paul Hamilton and Ian H Gotlib
    Citation: Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders 2011 1:11
    Content type: Research Published on: