Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy May Reduce Overactivity in Some Brain Regions in Anxious Youth

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) may normalize activity in some parts of the brain that are overactive in youth with anxiety disorders, suggests areport published today inThe American Journal of Psychiatry. After three months of CBT, youth with anxiety showed reduced activity in frontal and parietal brain regions (areas known to be involved with attention and emotional regulation).“Understanding the brain circuitry underpinning feelings of severe anxiety and determining which circuits normalize and which do not as anxiety symptoms improve with CBT is critical for advancing treatment and making it more effective for all children,” said lead author Simone Haller, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Mental Health in apress release.Haller and colleagues used functional MRI (fMRI) to analyze brain activity in 69 youth who were not taking medications (41% males, average age 13 years) and had been diagnosed with anxiety disorder. The youth underwent an fMRI at the start of the study as well as after 12 weeks of CBT. The researchers evaluated changes in the youth ’s anxiety weekly using the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale and the Clinical Global Impressions Scale improvement scale.After 12 weeks of therapy, 66% of youth with anxiety experienced a clinically significant decline in anxiety symptoms, Haller and colleagues reported.The researchers compared the fMRI scans collected from youth with anxiety before and after CBT treatment; they also compared the fMRI scans with those ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: American Journal of Psychiatry amygdala anxiety children cognitive-behavioral therapy fronto-parietal regions NIMH youth Source Type: research