14 DAY TRIAL // A new find made by experts at the University of Michigan shows that anxiety may actually be favored by a chemical that was originally meant to aid our brains develop normally. The new study reveals that rats who were bred in such a manner that they suffered from higher degrees of anxiety than others exhibited a significantly reduced level of the fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) chemical inside their brains. The study applies to humans as well, on account of the great similarities that exist between the way chemicals in the rat and the human brain act.
The US researchers have also determined that the condition could be improved, even if the rats have been born with a higher predisposition towards suffering from anxiety. When the science team gave the affected creatures new toys to play with, an obstacle course, or a larger cage, the animals started producing the growth factor in significantly larger quantities, and became a lot calmer over time. This is a very important aspect of the new research, as it may provide health care experts with the information they need to create new treatments for human anxiety as well.
“The levels of this molecule increased in response to the experiences that the rats were exposed to. It also decreased their anxiety. It made them behave the same way as the rats that were laid back and had low anxiety to begin with,” University of Michigan scientist Javier Perez, who has also been the author of a new study detailing the finds, told Reuters in a telephone interview. The paper appears in a recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza, an expert from the University of Bordeaux, in France, said in a recent statement that, “This discovery may pave the way for new, more specific treatments for anxiety that will not be based on sedation, like currently prescribed drugs, but will instead fight the real cause of the disease.” Funds for the new investigation were made available by the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Fund, which is currently seeking to develop the molecule for human use, and then to patent it and begin production of new, topic drugs.