The title of the Biological Council Symposium for 1991 - Experimental Approaches to Anxiety and Depression - indicates a growing change in the way both psychiatrists and experimental neuroscientists view these two mental diseases. In the past, depression and anxiety were neatly compartmentalized into distinct boxes with the amine uptake inhibitors and monoamine oxidase inhibitors used to treat depression and the benzodiazepines anxiety. Similarly it was generally assumed that the biological basis of the two diseases ...
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The title of the Biological Council Symposium for 1991 - Experimental Approaches to Anxiety and Depression - indicates a growing change in the way both psychiatrists and experimental neuroscientists view these two mental diseases. In the past, depression and anxiety were neatly compartmentalized into distinct boxes with the amine uptake inhibitors and monoamine oxidase inhibitors used to treat depression and the benzodiazepines anxiety. Similarly it was generally assumed that the biological basis of the two diseases differed, with involvement hypothesis to explain anxiety. Since that time our understanding of the basic pharmacology of the neurotransmitters in the brain has advanced rapidly and we now know there are multiple receptors for noradrenaline, serotonin and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).
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