title: Sex differences in anxiety disorders: Interactions between fear, stress, and gonadal hormones.
abstract: This article is part of a Special Issue "SBN 2014". Women are more vulnerable to stress- and fear-based disorders, such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the growing literature on this topic, the neural basis of these sex differences remains unclear, and the findings appear inconsistent. The neurobiological mechanisms of fear and stress in learning and memory processes have been extensively studied, and the crosstalk between these systems is beginning to explain the disproportionate incidence and differences in symptomatology and remission within these psychopathologies. In this review, we discuss the intersect between stress and fear mechanisms and their modulation by gonadal hormones and discuss the relevance of this information to sex differences in anxiety and fear-based disorders. Understanding these converging influences is imperative to the development of more effective, individualized treatments that take sex and hormones into account.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 149 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA. Electronic address: lmaeng@mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Lisa Y
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Maeng
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 149 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA. Electronic address: milad@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Mohammed R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Milad
mesh_terms: D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000378:metabolism*; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D042341:Gonadal Hormones / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D042341:Gonadal Hormones
keywords: Anxiety; Estrogen; Fear conditioning; Fear extinction; PTSD; Progesterone; Psychiatric disorders; Sex difference; Stress; Testosterone