ReviewRisk assessment as an evolved threat detection and analysis process☆
Section snippets
Defensive behaviors
Defensive behaviors have evolved because they improve an animal's chance of survival in confrontations with threat; in particular, threat from predators and attacking conspecifics (Blanchard, 1997). As predators make their living by consuming prey, while attacking conspecifics enjoy substantial rewards as the result of successful attack, both have evolved a number of behavioral (and sometimes structural) adaptations that make such attack likely to succeed. This analysis suggests that successful
Some theoretical treatments of defensive behaviors and psychopathology
The association of defensive behaviors with threat, and some apparent behavioral and functional similarities between, particularly, RA and symptoms of anxiety disorders suggested a biological relationship between the two types of behavioral phenomena. This view, at a relatively low and empirical level, was a component of analyses of RA almost from the point where the pattern was conceptualized (Blanchard et al., 1991). Attempts to evaluate such relationships by analysis of effects of drugs
Drugs differentiate RA and flight
The suggestions that RA may be involved in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) (Blanchard et al., 1991) and that flight may be associated with PD (Deakin and Graeff, 1991, Griebel et al., 1995) have led to an extensive literature on the effects of psychoactive agents in both the MDTB, and the ETM. Reviews of results obtained with the MDTB (Blanchard et al., 2001a, Blanchard et al., 2003) provide support for an association of RA with anxiety: Many drugs effective against GAD (a range of
Functional homologies of defensive behaviors between rodents and humans
These attempts to relate rodent defensive behaviors to human anxiety disorders quickly ran into an information gap: Are there systematic parallels between normal rodent and human behavioral responses to threat? How do these relate to threat-linked psychopathologies? In an attempt to provide some information on the first of these questions, Blanchard et al. (2001b) devised a set of scenarios precisely aimed at determining what people thought that they would do in response to combinations of
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Preparation of this manuscript was supported by NIH RO1 MH081845.