Quirk Gregory J
Departments of Psychiatry and Anatomy & Neurobiology, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
PLoS Biol. 2017 Apr 17;15(4):e2002079. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2002079. eCollection 2017 Apr.
Fear is an instinctual response that's adaptive and critical for survival when it is short-lived but can lead to anxiety disorders when chronic. Studying how the brain controls our fears helps us understand the mechanisms required to recover from traumatic experiences and what goes wrong when we don't. Research in rodents has identified neural circuits and molecular mechanisms regulating fear expression. Rodent work has been amenable to translation to humans and has led to improvements in clinical therapies for anxiety disorders. The societal benefit of this type of research is magnified when performed in minority-serving institutions, offering high-caliber training opportunities to increase ethnic diversity in science.
恐惧是一种本能反应，短暂存在时具有适应性且对生存至关重要，但长期存在则可能导致焦虑症。研究大脑如何控制我们的恐惧有助于我们理解从创伤经历中恢复所需的机制，以及当我们无法恢复时哪里出了问题。对啮齿动物的研究已经确定了调节恐惧表达的神经回路和分子机制。啮齿动物的研究成果易于转化应用于人类，并已推动了焦虑症临床治疗方法的改进。当在为少数族裔服务的机构开展这类研究时，其社会效益会得到放大，因为这类研究提供了高水平的培训机会，有助于增加科学界的种族多样性。
