ABSTRACT
Animal models of human social anxiety have become invaluable tools for understanding basic concepts in neural circuitry, behavioral pharmacology, receptor function, and attachment behavior. Models ranging from rodent anxiety tests to mouse genetic knockouts have provided important data in the quest for potential anxiolytics and targets for drug development. More challenging, however, has been the development and validation of animal models that homologously model human social anxiety. Since impairments in social interaction form the cornerstone of many psychiatric illnesses beyond social anxiety disorder-including autism, schizophrenia, and schizotypal personality-it is likely that the most cogent animal models of social anxiety will have broad applicability to a variety of human illnesses. In that respect, it has been suggested that animal models for psychiatric illnesses should be judged by their relevance to the specific questions they are being used to address rather than their disease homology (1).
