ABSTRACT
The hallmarks of generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) are persistent uncontrollable worry about a wide range of matters and vigilance for threat. Two-thirds of GAD sufferers have an onset between age 11 and their early twenties with usually no particular trigger but a significant minority have an onset in middle adulthood generally associated with a major life-event such as the death of a loved one. The amygdala and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex constitute a neural circuit that is responsible for the detection of threats. Young people with GAD have been found to have hyperactivation of the amygdala that is not moderated by the actions of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Monk et al. 2008).
