Neuroscientists discover new brain circuit that alleviates anxiety

Your heart is racing, your arms are tingling, and your breathing is shallow. You’re having an anxiety attack. And on top of that, you’re in a public place. A crowded restaurant, say, or in an office. This is not a place where you can lie comfortably on the ground and do deep breathing exercises to calm yourself down.

What if there was a pill that could make you breathe so calmly instead? Such a scenario may become possible after a new scientific breakthrough.

Neurologists from Salk Institute for Biological Research in La Jolla have identified a brain pathway that immediately relieves anxiety. New study that published earlier this week in a science journal Life neuroscienceexplains how this brain circuit regulates voluntary breathing – which means conscious breathing as opposed to automatic breathing, which happens without us having to think about it – which allows us to slow our breathing and calm our mind.

The discovery opens the potential to create new drugs that mimic the state of relaxation common during breath work, meditation or yoga. Sung Hansenior author of the study, says he would like to one day see a “yoga pill,” as he calls it, on the market that relieves anxiety. This would likely be useful to the more than 40 million adults in the U.S. who, according to National Alliance on Mental Illnesssuffers from anxiety disorder.

Han says the new discovery is a real scientific breakthrough.

“It’s always exciting as a scientist to find something we’ve never known before,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “This top-down breathing circuit has been a long-standing question in the field of neurology. It is exciting to discover the neural mechanism that explains how slowing breathing can control negative emotions such as anxiety and fear.

We have long known that we can control our breathing patterns to change our state of mind – when we are stressed, we can do this take a deep, slow breath feel calmer. But scientists didn’t understand this How it worked – which parts of the brain actually slowed our breathing and why this activity calmed us down. They now know that in the cerebral cortex, the higher part of the brain responsible for more conscious, complex thoughts, is a group of cells that send information to the brainstem, which in turn sends information to the lungs. This is the “circuit” mentioned above.

The finding supports soothing behavioral practices such as yoga, mindfulness and even “box breathing” — the latter is a technique that involves inhaling repeatedly and then holding your breath for four seconds to relieve stress — because it bases these behavioral practices on science.

But the practical applications are what make Salk’s discovery so important, Han says.

“This could potentially create a whole new class of drugs that are more targeted at anxiety disorders,” he says.

These would differ from common anti-anxiety medications in that they target more areas of the brain. Commonly used anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax and Lexapro act on multiple areas of the brain that control many brain processes and behaviors. Therefore, these medications do not work in the same way for everyone and may cause unwanted side effects. More precise targeting of an individual brain circuit increases the drug’s effectiveness and reduces potential side effects. In extreme cases, such a pill may be more effective in treating anxiety than breathing exercises.

“If you’re panicking, breathing techniques alone may not be enough to quell the anxiety,” says Han.

Han’s team is now trying to find the opposite circuit – the rapid breathing circuit increases Bow.

“To target the slow breathing circuit, we need to understand the opposite circuit to avoid targeting it,” Han says. “To ease anxiety.”

Han hopes his discoveries will lead to a “yoga pill,” but that’s probably still a long way off. The research and related clinical trials could take up to 10 years, he says. And nothing is certain.

“I can’t say that this discovery is directly related to the discovery of a new drug,” Han says. “But I can say it’s a stepping stone. We already know the path. It’s exciting. This is the first step.”