Anxiety Attacks?

[NutritionNerd]

There's a really neat explanation of some research regarding the SERT genes on a website called psycheducation.org . I can't post links yet so you'll have to find it the hard way.
The page I'm going to quote is /mechanism/4WhyShortsLongs.htm

They've found there are 3 varieties of people in terms of the (SERT) serotonin carrier - short/short, short/long, and long/long. They did some fMRI studies on these various groups and found that the loop for anxiety control is different depending on which group you belong to. I really like this explanation below of the short/short loop because it is exactly how I can be.

[picture of the loop in long/long type people]

The amygdala, shown as a yellow oval, sends signals to the bottom part of the cingulate, shown in red. In the current working theory developed from this and other research, a signal then travels within the cingulate, reaching the part just above, shown here in blue. That part of the cingulate is thought to decrease or somehow slow down the activity of the amygdala. The result is that when the amygdala becomes active, this control loop damps it back down: something like "calm down, calm down, it's just a garden spider, we've seen this before, this one is not a dangerous one."

[picture of the loop in short/short type people]

As you can see, the signal from the amygdala into the cingulate is not as strong. The activity of the loop is not as strong either. The result is that the amygdala is not being damped down as strongly as it is in a person with two long alleles. The result might be something like "calm down, it doesn't look like a dangerous spider, although I suppose...." In the words of one of the investigators: "This study suggests that the cingulate’s ability to put the brakes on a runaway-amygdala fear response depends upon the degree of connectivity in this circuit, which is influenced by the serotonin transporter gene.” Got that? If not, walk through that sentence again: this is the "bottom line" conclusion from their research, their current working guess as to how the different gene lengths affect anxiety.

So there just might be an explanation for that runaway anxiety loop that you can get into. It also may be why CBT can be so helpful. When we increase brain activity in any given area we can strengthen or increase the number of connections so I believe it is possible to improve the feedback loop to alleviate some of that anxiety. There is research indicating that many antidepressants actually work by promoting new neuron growth in various parts of the brain.

 

[Arctic]

Hi there!
Thanks everyone for the feedback. I probably rolled my eye's at "T" when she told me that I can control them. I find that mine come out of the blue and are intense and I want to self harm, or have. I avoid them by sleeping, or trying to sleep. It scares me enough I've been avoiding bringing it up in therapy. I'm sure she's heard worse.?....

 

[alleycat]

They can be either, but having a high level of anxiety to start off with always lead to more random panic/anxiety attacks for me. If your anxiety is lowered, mine tend to be more trigger induced (and the body also takes a longer time to ratchet itself up to that same level of fear since you aren't already in an anxious/fearful state).