Indeed, LeDoux believes that a true understanding of anxiety lies in an exploration of one of the most complex subjects left in neuroscience: The nature of consciousness (the subject of his recent book, The Deep History of Ourselves).
事实上，勒杜认为，对焦虑的真正理解在于探索神经科学中最复杂的课题之一：意识的本质(这是他最近的一本书《我们自身的深刻历史》的主题)。
While the amygdala or the BNST prime our bodies to react defensively by activating hormonal cascades and defensive behaviors, our minds—the higher-level processing areas of the brain—give meaning to what we are experiencing. In a way, what we call "fear" and "anxiety" are manifestations of our consciousness. Any truly effective treatment for anxiety, LeDoux argues, will require a better understanding of processes beyond the ancient brain structures that trigger behaviors and release hormones, extending to what creates our awareness of self.
当杏仁核或终纹床核启动我们的身体通过激活激素级联和防御行为来做出防御反应时，我们的大脑——大脑的高级处理区域——赋予我们所经历的意义。在某种程度上，我们所说的“恐惧”和“焦虑”是我们意识的表现。勒杜认为，任何真正有效的治疗焦虑的方法，都需要更好地理解那些触发行为和释放激素的古老大脑结构之外的过程，进而延伸到创造我们自我意识的东西。
We all have an anxiety "set-point," a state we are likely to return to throughout life. Although this is partially genetically determined, a growing body of research suggests that it can be molded by life experience. In one 2011 study, for instance, Virginia Commonwealth University psychiatrist Charles Gardner and his collaborators examined nine data sets of longitudinal studies of 12,000 twins across three continents, and examined self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression at different stages of their lives. While the set points for 10-year-old identical twins were the same or very close to one another, they diverged sharply as the twins moved through adolescence and into adulthood, which suggests that genetic predisposition played only a part.
我们都有一个焦虑的“设定值”，一个我们可能会在一生中回到的状态。虽然这部分是由基因决定的，但越来越多的研究表明，它可以由生活经验塑造。例如，在2011年的一项研究中，弗吉尼亚联邦大学的精神病学家查尔斯·加德纳和他的合作者对来自三大洲的1.2万名双胞胎进行了九组纵向研究，并检查了他们在人生不同阶段自我报告的焦虑和抑郁症状。虽然10岁的同卵双胞胎的设定值是相同的，或者非常接近，但随着双胞胎从青春期进入成年期，设定值急剧偏离，这表明遗传倾向只起了一部分作用。
LeDoux argues individual experience exerts its influence on the set point in part through the development of "mental schema," sets of memories organized around a topic that are activated every time you're in a potentially fear- or anxiety-inducing situation. We might "fear" failing an exam at school because our parents told us that we would never succeed, or we heard the exam was hard or perhaps we failed a previous one. Each time we walk into an exam room, we carry a sense of anxiety into it. Even were it possible to deactivate the BNST and amygdala with a drug, LeDoux says, these mental schema would still interfere with our taking the test.
勒杜认为，个体经验对设定值的影响部分是通过“心理图式”的发展来实现的。“心理图式”是围绕某个话题组织起来的一系列记忆，每当你处于潜在的恐惧或焦虑情境时，这些记忆就会被激活。我们可能会“害怕”在学校考试不及格，因为我们的父母告诉我们，我们永远不会成功，或者我们听说考试很难，或者也许我们以前失败了。每次走进考场，我们都会有一种焦虑感。勒杜说，即使可以用药物使终纹床核和杏仁核失活，这些心理图式仍然会干扰我们进行测试。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
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