title: Balance deficit enhances anxiety and balance training decreases anxiety in vestibular mutant mice.
abstract: Treatment of anxiety disorders by either pharmacological or behavioral means is applied with the intention to directly target the limbic system or high brain centers that down-regulate limbic activity. In spite of intense and long treatment, remission is not achieved in many patients, suggesting that their pathophysiology is not addressed by either of the above treatments. An alternative pathophysiology may be a disordered vestibular system, which may be studied in the context of comorbidity of balance and anxiety disorders. Here we studied whether mutant vestibular Headbanger (Hdb) mice demonstrate elevated anxiety and whether physical treatment of balance alleviates the behavioral symptoms of anxiety. Hdb and wildtype (Wt) mice were raised in either balance training or standard cages and were subjected repeatedly at 1-3 months of age to balance and anxiety-related tests. Results demonstrated progressive deterioration of balance performance and parallel elevation of anxiety in untrained Hdb as compared to untrained Wt mice. Training significantly improved balance performance of Hdb mice and in parallel, decreased the level of anxiety compared to untrained Hdb mice. These findings confirm that vestibular pathophysiology may be causally related to development of anxiety and suggest that in some clinical cases of anxiety, the appropriate treatment is physical rehabilitation of balance.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Electronic address: brain@freud.tau.ac.il.
authors.forename: Shahar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shefer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Meir Medical Center, Kfar Saba and Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Karen B
authors.initials: KB
authors.lastname: Avraham
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Matti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mintz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains; D010805:Physical Conditioning, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D004856:Postural Balance / Q000502:physiology*; D015837:Vestibular Diseases / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: Anxiety; Comorbidity; Mice; Mutant; Rehabilitation; Vestibular