New Brain Mechanism Discovered for Anxiety

"University of Alberta scientist pinpoints anxiety trigger"

Discovery may lead to new drugs to block most common mental health problem

EDMONTON - Groundbreaking research by a University of Alberta neuroscientist holds the promise of new treatment for anxiety disorders, Canadas most common mental health problem.

The research published last week in The Journal of Neuroscience pinpoints a previously undiscovered mechanism in the brain that controls anxiety. That mechanism affects neurons in the pea-sized part of the brain that assesses risk and reward, making those neurons more or less excitable and therefore more or less likely to send out anxious messages.

So far, nobody is using that (mechanism) as a drug target, William Colmers said Sunday. The hope is that we can use this new knowledge to develop new medicines.

Colmers began his research five years ago in collaboration with Janice Urban, an associate professor in the department of physiology and biophysics at the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

The pair already knew which chemical messengers in the brain were connected to increasing and reducing anxiety. But through their research they discovered how those chemicals work - they regulate an ion channel, part of a cell that makes neurons more likely to fire, causing anxiety, or less likely to fire, preventing anxiety.

The ion channels are usually pretty good drug targets, said Colmers, a professor of pharmacology with the universitys faculty of medicine and dentistry. That means new medications can be created to block the brains anxiety-producing messages, he said.

Some common anxiety treatments now are benzodiazepines, such as Valium, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac, Colmers said. Those drugs have unwanted side effects since they dont target the parts of the brain responsible for anxiety very well. Benzodiazepines, for example, are used in sleeping pills and are addictive, Colmers noted. So while they work to reduce anxiety, they also cause drowsiness and withdrawal.

It helps - it stops the panic disorder - but its not very targeted. Its not very selective because it works pretty much everywhere in the brain, he said.

There are disadvantages to the existing medicines. Lets face it, no medicine, particularly one that works on the brain, is perfect. But theres hope now that there might be more targeted pharmaceutical compounds or treatment approaches that will help treat just these disorders.

The research also found that when scientists repeatedly blocked those anxious messages in lab rats over a five-day period, the rats became resistant to stress for months. So theres a big, long-term change, Colmers said.

That could be important in treating anxiety disorders such as panic attacks and post-traumatic stress, which can be triggered by a traumatic event.

By blocking these ion channels, its our bet anyway, that we may be able to reverse that whole process ... If somebodys been, lets say, a soldier in a firefight, maybe they could come back and get a treatment that prevents that ion channel from being made in those cells and so prevent ... the condition from coming up in the first place.

New drugs to treat anxiety based on this research are still probably about 10 years away.

However, mental-health advocate Austin Mardon said the research is still great news for people managing anxiety. I have taken anti-anxiety drugs and theyre very broad in their attack. They make you very fuzzy-headed, said Mardon, who has been on Prozac to treat depression for the past six years.

Im sure the drug companies will be courting (Colmers). Were at the beginning of a new horizon in terms of psychiatric medications ... I think this is fabulous.

Another longtime mental-health advocate said the research findings are especially during the holiday season when anxieties can become more pronounced.

We face times where the images of perfect families and relationships abound, and yet many of us are not part of that, so it leads, in part at least, to illnesses such as depression and anxiety, said Dennis Anderson.

Certainly, pharmaceuticals have been a key for many people in dealing with or even recovering from mental illness over the years.

Psychiatrist Pratap Chokka specializes in treating anxiety disorders and said they are they most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders. Probably about 20-25 per cent of us in our lifetime may experience an anxiety disorder.

Those include phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic disorder.

Theyre very common and theyre quite debilitating, said Chokka, who recently established The Chokka Center for Integrative Health in southeast Edmonton. The existing treatments, although effective, are far from adequate. They dont often restore people to the quality of life that one deserves.

Most people are treated with a combination of drugs and talking therapies such as counselling, said Chokka. He also advocates other efforts to manage stress such as exercise, a nutritious diet and calming techniques such as meditation.

Depression, chronic & severe, recurrent, treatment-resistant w/GAD.

Meds: Effexor XR 300mg, Adderall IR 20mg 3x daily, Klonopin 5mg, Seroquel 400mg, Ambien 10mg, Synthroid 150mcg, Androgel

New Brain Mechanism Discovered for Anxiety

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