What is it about?
A large-scale study on the question of whether specific phobias are linked to changes in the structure of the brain. Data from thousands of patients and healthy individuals from a global network of collaboration partners were brought together for this purpose.
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Why is it important?
Changes were found in the brains of those affected that went far beyond the previously assumed extent. It was also found that two subgroups of phobics - animal phobics, who tend to show fear and fight-or-flight behavior, and blood-injection-injury phobics, who can also experience feelings of disgust and even fainting - actually showed partly different changes in the brain. A final interesting finding of the study was that the aforementioned differences to healthy individuals were only found in adults with specific phobias, but not in children and adolescents, in whom transient fears are normal in terms of developmental psychology.
Perspectives
Specific phobias are very common but somewhat neglected in current research. This is partly due to the severity of the phobias being seen as minor, which is true for some but not for all patients. We hope this research will help to undestand these fears better on the brain level, which might help to prevent their onset and to improve their treatment.
Kevin Hilbert
HMU Health and Medical University Erfurt
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cortical and Subcortical Brain Alterations in Specific Phobia and Its Animal and Blood-Injection-Injury Subtypes: A Mega-Analysis From the ENIGMA Anxiety Working Group, American Journal of Psychiatry, June 2024, American Psychiatric Association,
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20230032.
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