14 DAY TRIAL // University of Bristol experts announce the discovery of a protein that plays an important role in underlying the manifestation of anxiety-like symptoms. The discovery is very important, considering the debilitating nature of anxiety, and the large number of people it affects.
Official statistics for the United States indicate that anxiety disorders are the most common cause of disability at the workplace, and therefore extremely harmful to company productivity and the economy.
At this point, there are no clear methods of treating this condition, and medication therapies only yield partial results with variable numbers of patients. Therefore, there is a great need of more in-depth research into the causes that underly the onset of anxiety disorders.
In addition to causing damage at the workplace, anxiety can also reduce a patient's quality of life by affecting the relationships they have with their family and friends. However, these cases are extreme, since all of us experience fear and anxiety to some extent.
This is the natural response that our body produces when exposed to stress. Issues develop when the response spirals out of control, and is no longer inhibited by relevant neural mechanisms in the brain.
What was made clear in past studies was that the causes leading to the onset of anxiety disorder are tremendously complex. This means that they are little understood and, therefore, treatments based on them incomplete and only partially effective.
In a paper published in the latest issue of the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience, UB experts provide details of a newly-found protein, which they say plays an important role in triggering the condition.
The work was conducted by professor David Lodge, Dr. Laura Ceolin and Dr. Zuner Bortolotto, who are all based at the UB School of Physiology and Pharmacology MRC Center for Synaptic Plasticity.
Usually, the mGlu2 receptor protein is responsible for detecting and responding to the L-glutamate, which is a neurotransmitter that is essential for mammals, including humans. In lab animals, removing the mGlu2 receptor protein led to the onset of anxiety-like symptoms.
This study should allow investigators to start new research studies into developing novel drugs against anxiety. Now, they know that this specific protein subtype needs to be targeted directly.
Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, stress, epilepsy and neuropathic pain could also be addressed thanks to this discovery, as they share a number of common features with anxiety.