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Is our tendency to experience fear and anxiety genetic? - Scientific American

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Is our tendency to experience fear

and anxiety genetic?
Mar6,2000

WilliamR.
Clark

Fearwhich in humans ranges from generalized anxiety to specific

phobiasis an important biological adaptation and a common
behavior in all mammals. Fear is an emotion, an unspoken memory,
stored in special parts of the brain. It provokes individuals to react
rapidly, almost instinctively, in the face of perceived danger. Fear can
be present in greater or lesser degrees in different individuals. When
a tendency to fear is present in excess, its consequences are not
always helpful.

As many as one fourth of all Americans will suffer from potentially debilitating
anxiety, panic disorders, animal phobias and post-traumatic stress reactions at least
once in their lives. These disorders cause not only mental anguish but a variety of
real physical symptoms, including localized pain. As with other forms of behavior, we
would like to know to what extent fear is learned from environmental experience and
to what extent it is influenced by our genetic makeup.
The study of fear in animals such as mice has shown that
fear can be selectively bred into succeeding generations,
suggesting a strong genetic component. Randomly selected
mice subjected to an "open-field test"a brightly lit, open
box with no hiding placesexhibit a range of different
responses. Some mice cower motionless near one wall,
defecating and urinating repeatedly, whereas others roam
about, sniffing and exploring without concern. Most mice
are somewhere between these two extremes. If fearful mice
are bred with one another repeatedly over a dozen or so
generations, it is possible to develop lines of mice in which
all members are highly anxious and fearful in a variety of
different tests. But they do not learn this from one another
or from their mothers. A newborn mouse from a fearful
line, reared by a fearless mother together with fearless

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WilliamR.Clark,professoremeritusinthedepartmentofmolecular,celland
developmentalbiologyatU.C.L.A.andauthorofanumberofpopularbooks,offers
thefollowinganswer:

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siblings, will still be fearful as an adult.

Specific genes associated with such behavior are currently
being identified in laboratory mice. Not surprisingly, many

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of the genes associated with fear or the lack of it encode

Seed treatment is an effective means to deliver
bioactive molecules directly to the surface of a seed,
neurotransmitters or their receptors. These are the
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communication between nerve cells; they ultimately
LABORATORY
underlie all behavior. Mice lacking functional nerve cell
GABAMOLECULE.
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receptors for the neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-amino Micelackingfunctional
nervecellreceptorsforthis
neurotransmitter,gamma
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-our-tendency-to-experi/

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7/5/2014

Is our tendency to experience fear and anxiety genetic? - Scientific American

neurotransmitter,gamma
butyric acid) are more fearful than mice with the receptor. aminobutyricacid,aremore
fearfulthanmicehavingthe
receptor.
GABA is used by higher regions of the brain to tone down
some of the lower brain's initial impulses and may function to decrease overly fearful
responses to environmental stimuli. Similarly, mice lacking a receptor in the brain
for glucocorticoid stress hormones are much less anxious than control mice. An
unexpected category of genes associated with fearfulness in mice includes some of the
genes involved in the operation of biological clocks. How these genes relate to fear is
unclear at present, but unraveling their role may shed new light on the origins of fear
within the brains of people as well as mice.

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There is considerable evidence in humans, derived largely from studies of adopted

children, and identical and fraternal twins reared together or apart, that a tendency
toward anxiety and fear is a heritable trait. The specific form that fear takesphobias
with specific associations, such as snakes, fear of pain, or of heights or closed

Amazing Animation Meets Mouse Genetics

spacesis almost entirely associated with individual environmental experiences. But

the tendency to develop fearful or anxious responses to the environment in general
has a clear genetic component.

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fear and anxiety involves neurotransmitters and their receptors, and again GABA and
its receptors play a key role. But perhaps the most important neurotransmitter
mediating anxiety in humans is serotonin. Variability in the receptors responsible for

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clearing serotonin from the synaptic space between two communicating neurons
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depression also has a marked genetic component.

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Fear and anxiety are influenced by many genes; there is no such thing as a simple
"fear" gene that is inherited from one generation to the next. The genes controlling
neurotransmitters and their receptors are all present in several different forms in the
general population. The particular combinations of these different forms that we
receive from our parents will predispose us to respond with greater or lesser degrees
of anxiety to events in our environment. But the degree to which our lives are
affected by this inherited predisposition will depend to a very large extent on our
individual histories--the number, strength,X
type and duration of events that elicit
such reactions in the first place.

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