anxiety

Overview

Anxiety is a common psychiatric symptom and disorder category characterized by excessive fear, apprehension, hyperarousal, and related cognitive and somatic symptoms. Clinically, it may occur as a primary disorder or as a comorbid feature across many medical and psychiatric conditions, including depression, chronic pain syndromes, Parkinson's disease, endometriosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, fibromyalgia, cancer-related caregiving stress, and metabolic or endocrine disorders. Because anxiety can influence quality of life, treatment adherence, symptom burden, and functional outcomes, it is frequently measured as both a clinical endpoint and a covariate in biomedical research.

Biologically, anxiety is linked to dysregulation across multiple systems, including brain-gut signaling, stress-response pathways, neuroendocrine function, and neural circuits involved in emotion processing and autonomic regulation. Recent studies in the provided corpus also connect anxiety with molecular and systems-level mechanisms such as MAPK/ERK/JNK signaling, mitophagy via the SIRT3/PINK1/Parkin pathway, oxytocin deficiency, and broader neuropsychiatric toxicity profiles of anticancer therapies. In this context, anxiety is not only a clinical diagnosis but also a measurable phenotype used to evaluate disease burden, treatment effects, and mechanistic hypotheses.

Focus of Latest Publications

Recent publications used anxiety as a target phenotype in a wide range of clinical, translational, and mechanistic studies.

A traditional Chinese medicine study on Tianwang Buxin Dan (TWBXD) investigated its effects on constipation-associated emotional disorders through the brain-gut axis. The formula was described as traditionally prescribed to “nourish Yin, calm the mind and relieve bowel stagnation” in disorders characterized by heart-kidney disharmony, insomnia, anxiety, and constipation. The study specifically framed anxiety as part of the emotional symptom complex accompanying gastrointestinal dysfunction, and linked the intervention to MAPK/ERK/JNK signaling pathways.

Another ethnopharmacology study examined levistilide A from Ligusticum chuanxiong, reporting that it alleviated LPS-induced depression- and anxiety-like behaviors by promoting mitophagy through the SIRT3/PINK1/Parkin pathway. This work positioned anxiety-like behavior as a readout of neuroinflammatory or stress-related pathology and suggested a mitochondrial quality-control mechanism as part of the observed effect.

In oncology pharmacovigilance and multi-omics research, palbociclib was associated with a greater reporting burden of fatigue and anxiety than abemaciclib, along with a higher fatal outcome reporting rate. This finding is relevant to breast cancer and Cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitors, indicating that anxiety can emerge as a clinically important adverse event in cancer therapy surveillance.

Several studies addressed anxiety in youth and preventive mental health. One BMJ Mental Health article focused on attitudes toward risk prediction tools and personalized preventive interventions for depression and anxiety, emphasizing that such tools may identify youth at risk and support targeted prevention. A related protocol described a virtual reality-based social musical exergame for young adults with depression and anxiety, reflecting ongoing efforts to improve engagement in digital and activity-based interventions. Another protocol evaluated yoga as an adjunct therapy for people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy, with anxiety included among the psychological outcomes alongside depression, stress, quality of life, and medication adherence.

Anxiety also appeared in studies of neuroendocrine and social functioning. In patients with AVP deficiency (central diabetes insipidus), oxytocin substitution therapy was motivated by evidence that oxytocin deficiency is linked to increased anxiety and impaired emotion recognition, with MDMA stimulation tests used to identify the deficiency. This highlights anxiety as a phenotype potentially related to oxytocinergic signaling and social-emotional processing.

In neurology, a piezoelectric neuromodulation study in Parkinson's disease reported that ultrasound stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus alleviated nonmotor symptoms such as pain and anxiety in PD mice without detectable toxicity. This suggests that anxiety can be used as a nonmotor outcome in preclinical neuromodulation research, alongside motor behavior.

Anxiety was also integrated into disease burden and symptom interaction analyses. In endometriosis, polygenic risk interacted with abdominal pain, anxiety, migraine, and nausea, indicating that anxiety may cluster with somatic symptom profiles and genetic susceptibility. In fibromyalgia, state and trait anxiety scores were incorporated into multivariate pattern analysis of resting-state EEG biomarkers, supporting anxiety as a relevant psychological dimension in chronic pain research. In systemic lupus erythematosus, anxiety was among the factors assessed for its association with Health-Related Quality of Life, together with sleep quality, disease activity, pain scale, and corticosteroid dose.

In aging and psychosocial research, anxiety was measured alongside depressive symptoms and intergenerational support. One study reported that intergenerational support trajectories and anxiety-depression symptoms were linked in older adults, while another found that depression, but not anxiety, was associated with epigenetic age accelerations among Asian older adults. These findings underscore that anxiety is often analyzed in parallel with depression but may show distinct biological and epidemiologic patterns.

Anxiety was also used as an outcome or covariate in studies of caregiving and stigma. A protocol on self-care in partners of cancer patients noted that self-care in caring relatives may prevent anxiety and depression and reduce caregiver burden. In PCOS, a stigma prediction model for overweight and obese patients included quantification of anxiety as part of clinical grading and risk assessment. Across these studies, anxiety served as a clinically meaningful endpoint reflecting mental health burden, treatment tolerability, and quality-of-life impact.

Key Publications

• May Tianwangbuxiandan decoction alleviates constipation and associated emotional disorders via regulating the brain-gut axis: Involving MAPK/ERK/JNK signaling pathways. (Journal of ethnopharmacology, 2026, PMID 41654070): "Tianwang Buxin Dan (TWBXD) is a classical Chinese formula traditionally prescribed to "nourish Yin, calm the mind and relieve bowel stagnation" in disorders characterized by heart-kidney disharmony, insomnia, anxiety, and constipation."
• May Oxytocin substitution therapy in patients with AVP deficiency (central diabetes insipidus): study protocol of a double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial. (BMJ open, 2026, PMID 42082227): "This hypothesis was recently proven by using the 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine stimulation tests and identifying OXT deficiency in patients with AVP-D, linked to increased anxiety and impaired emotion recognition."
• May Divergent neuropsychiatric and systemic toxicity profiles of abemaciclib and palbociclib: a triangulation study integrating pharmacovigilance, genetic epidemiology, and multi-omics profiling. (Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology, 2026, PMID 42091703): "By contrast, palbociclib showed a greater reporting burden of fatigue and anxiety and a higher fatal outcome reporting rate than abemaciclib (12.46% vs 6.52%)."
• May 'It is just a prediction; it's, like, not fact': youth attitudes towards risk prediction tools and personalised preventive interventions for depression and anxiety. (BMJ mental health, 2026, PMID 42091201): "Risk prediction tools may help identify youth who are at risk of developing depression or anxiety and allow personalised preventive interventions to be delivered."
• May Piezoelectric neuromodulation of the subthalamic nucleus ameliorates motor and nonmotor symptoms of Parkinson's disease. (Science advances, 2026, PMID 42066086): "After ultrasound stimulation for several days, the motor behavior, particularly gait abnormalities and nonmotor symptoms such as pain and anxiety, in PD mice is alleviated without detectable toxicity."
• May Virtual Reality-Based Social Musical Exergame Guided by Self-Determination Theory for Young Adults With Depression and Anxiety: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial. (JMIR research protocols, 2026, PMID 42066290): "Depression and anxiety frequently emerge during late adolescence and young adulthood; however, many conventional and app-based interventions struggle to sustain engagement."
• May Building and validating a stigma prediction model for overweight and obese patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS): A observational study. (Medicine, 2026, PMID 42065211): "the prediction model allows clinic staff to rapidly grade hirsutism, acne, and acanthosis, determine fertility desire, and quantify anxiety."
• May Multivariate Pattern Analysis Identifies Potential Intertrial Resting-State EEG Biomarkers in Fibromyalgia. (The European journal of neuroscience, 2026, PMID 42045133): "...incorporating state and trait anxiety scores."
• May Multi-ancestry genome-wide association and integrated multi-omics analyses of endometriosis and its clinical manifestations. (Nature genetics, 2026, PMID 42056605): "Endometriosis polygenic risk interacted with abdominal pain, anxiety, migraine and nausea."
• Apr Effectiveness of yoga therapy as an adjunct on mental health status, quality of life, and medication adherence among people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy: A study protocol of a randomized controlled trial (ART YOGA). (PloS one, 2026, PMID 42044105): "The current trial aims to assess the effectiveness of yoga as an adjunct therapy on psychological parameters (depression, anxiety, and stress), quality of life, and medication adherence of people living with HIV on antiretroviral therapy at a tertiary care hospital in AIIMS, New Delhi, India."