Anxiety articles from across Nature Portfolio

Cross talk between periphery and the central nervous system may contribute to stress associated behaviours. Here the authors identified liver-derived lipocalin 2 as a peripheral factor that elicits anxiety-like behaviours via modulating medial prefrontal neural activity.

The authors examine the longitudinal relationship between residential greenness and the incidence of depression and anxiety using a sample of 409,556 participants from the UK Biobank.

Brain connections modulated by 534 deep-brain-stimulation electrodes revealed a gradient of circuits involved in dystonia, Parkinson’s disease, Tourette’s syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Together, these circuits begin to describe the human ‘dysfunctome’, a library of dysfunctional circuits that lead to various brain disorders.

An AI-enabled chatbot increased self-referrals to psychological therapies for common mental health disorders; but further research is needed to ensure that better access translates into high-quality treatment experiences and outcomes for everyone.