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Behavioural neuroscience

Genes and the anxious brain

Nature volume 466, pages 827–828 (2010)Cite this article

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Some people are naturally more anxious than others. A brain-imaging study in monkeys provides surprising insights into which brain regions are under the influence of genes in this phenomenon and which are not.

How anxiously we react to threat or adversity is part of our personality. This stable characteristic is called trait anxiety, and those with high trait anxiety are more prone to mental disorders such as depression, substance abuse and psychosis1. Trait anxiety is heritable, with genes explaining much of the variability between individuals2. In this issue, Oler et al.3 investigate genetic effects on the activity of brain regions that mediate trait anxiety (page 864).

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Figure 1: When anxiety runs in a family of primates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg is at the Central Institute of Mental Health, J5, 68159 Mannheim, Germany. a.meyer-lindenberg@zi-mannheim.de,

    Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg

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  1. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
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Meyer-Lindenberg, A. Genes and the anxious brain. Nature 466, 827–828 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466827a

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