›› 2012, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (9): 1227-.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8115.2012.09.020

• Editorial • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research progress on endophenotype characteristics of psychopathology, early recognition and optimized treatment on anxiety disorder

XIAO Ze-ping, ZHANG Tian-hong   

  1. Research Group of Anxiety Disorder in Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China
  • Online:2012-09-28 Published:2012-09-29

Abstract:

Along with China´s economic and social development, the incidence of anxiety disorder has been increasing. According to the reports in 2009, the prevalence of anxiety disorder reached 5.6% in general population. The etiology of anxiety disorder is very complicated, and the overall remission rate is quite low, but apt to relapse, especially for the obsessive compulsive disorder which is one of the most severe and disabling type of diseases. Therefore, it is time for us to conduct an evidence based study to explore the endophenotype characteristics of psychopathology, early recognition and optimized treatment of anxiety disorder.Our studies focused on the biological pathogenesis and clinical features of anxiety disorder, picked the most essential elements and simplified as a toolkit for the early recognition, and applied to a successful promotion of general hospital to help the general practitioners identify anxiety disorder. The genetics, EEG, MRI and biochemistry research methods were used to explore the etiology of anxiety disorder. Our results show that a number of factors contribute to the risk of anxiety disorder: amplification or lack of copy number of 1p1.1 and 20p13 area of euchromosome, the increased N-acetylaspartate level relative to creatine in the medial prefrontal cortex, error-related negativity abnormalities, level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), et al. Those abnormal tests may help to early identify anxiety disorder through biological way. What´s more, we formulated the multi-dimension evaluation system and optimized treatment for anxiety disorder based on years of clinical experiences and research practice, which were proved as accurate and efficient methods for clinical practice.

Key words: pathogenesis, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, multi-dimension evaluation system, early recognition, optimized treatment