Citation

Blanchard DC, Griebel G, Pobbe R, Blanchard RJ, Sanofi-Synthelàbo. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 2011; 35(4): 991-998.

Affiliation

Pacific Biosciences Research Center and Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.10.016

PMID

21056591

Abstract

Risk Assessment is a pattern of activities involved in detection and analysis of threat stimuli and the situations in which the threat is encountered. It is a core process in the choice of specific defenses, such as flight, freezing, defensive threat and defensive attack, that counter the threat and minimize the danger it poses. This highly adaptive process takes into account important characteristics, such as type and location (including distance from the subject) of the threat, as well as those (e.g. presence of an escape route or hiding place) of the situation, combining them to predict which specific defense is optimal with that particular combination of threat and situation. Risk assessment is particularly associated with ambiguity either of the threat stimulus or of the outcome of available defensive behaviors. It is also crucial in determining that threat is no longer present, permitting a return to normal, nondefensive behavior. Although risk assessment has been described in detail in rodents, it is also a feature of human defensive behavior, particularly in association with ambiguity. Rumination may be a specifically human form of risk assessment, more often expressed by women, and highly associated with anxiety. Risk assessment behaviors respond to drugs effective against generalized anxiety disorder; however, flight, a dominant specific defense in many common situations, shows a pharmacological response profile closer to that of panic disorder. Risk assessment and flight also appear to show some consistent differences in terms of brain regional activation patterns, suggesting a potential biological differentiation of anxiety and fear/panic systems. An especially intriguing possibility is that mirror neurons may respond to some of the same types of situational differences that are analyzed during risk assessment, suggesting an additional functional role for these neurons. The topic of this special issue: 'Threat-DetectionProcesses: Neuro-physiological, Behavioral, Cultural and Psychiatric Aspects' reflects a great deal of recent research and attention to an important phenomenon that was virtually untouched until about 20 years ago. This particular contribution will focus on behavioral aspects of threat detection processes, mainly but not exclusively on an infrahuman level where they, or some of their components, are variously labeled 'vigilance' (in field studies) or 'risk assessment' (in laboratory work). We will attempt to describe these processes in rodents as part of an evolved pattern of defensive behaviors to threat, noting also an intriguing empirical link to human defenses. As risk assessment and other defensive behaviors have come to be utilized as models for investigation of anxiety and panic in laboratory rodents, a literature on the effects of drugs modulating anxiety and panic will also be described. Finally, some brief attention will be given to potential neural systems underlying risk assessment, as opposed to other more specific defensive behaviors. In total, these topics provide substantial evidence for an evolutionary conservation of risk assessment and other defenses across mammalian species, and provide evidence in support of a view that these behavior patterns may be linked to anxiety disorders in people.

Language: en