ABOUT ANXIETY DISORDERS
Anxiety and depressive disorders take an immense toll on patients, families and the healthcare system, ranking among the top causes of disability globally and affecting up to 15 percent of individuals. In fact, anxiety and depressive disorders account for more disability than most other mental health disorders and common physical disorders, such as diabetes and stroke. Youth and young adults experience the highest disease-burden associated with anxiety disorders. Anxiety disorders have an early age of onset—earlier than depression—and are associated with significant functional impairment. When left untreated, patients experience symptomatic distress and persistent disability. The Anxiety Disorders Research Program seeks to improve treatments for these disorders (and related conditions) across the lifespan.
Research within the Anxiety Disorders Research Program focuses on identifying risk factors for anxiety disorders and predicting treatment success. Rather than approaching all patients with anxiety and related disorders in the same way, our elite team, led by Jeffrey Strawn, MD, advocates using a precision medicine approach, targeting treatments. By improving our ability to predict which treatment will most benefit each patient while determining what to do when initial treatments have not provided relief, we can reduce uncertainty regarding outcomes for patients and their families. In order to put this concept into practice, we are conducting multiple treatment and observational studies. Together, this work will facilitate the discovery of the best treatment pathways for patients and provide high quality evidence that will aid clinicians in identifying patient-specific treatments.
Dr. Strawn and his collaborators also attempt to understand anxiety disorders in terms of brain activity and brain chemistry through the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy. In this regard, the Anxiety Disorders Research Program has identified early changes in brain circuits that predict treatment response to psychotropic medications in pediatric patients with anxiety disorders. Additionally, Dr. Strawn and colleagues are evaluating several medications which may helpful children, adolescents and adults with anxiety and related disorders.
The Anxiety Disorders Research Program also uses pharmacologic approaches to guide treatment with the goal of increasing efficacy and decreasing side effect burden. They are conducting a NIH-funded trial to examine whether pharmacogenetically-guided selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment improves efficacy and tolerability in adolescents with generalized, separation and/or social anxiety disorders—the pediatric anxiety triad.
The Anxiety Disorders Research Program at UC is supported by funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Developments, the Yung Family Foundation, and several pharmaceutical companies.