Pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders: Current treatments and future directions

Modern pharmacological treatments for anxiety disorders are safer and more tolerable than they were 30 years ago. Unfortunately, treatment efficacy and duration have not improved in most cases despite a greater understanding of the pathophysiology of anxiety. Moreover, innovative treatments have not reached the market despite billions of research dollars invested in drug development. In reviewing the literature on current treatments, we argue that evidence-based practice would benefit from better research on the causes of incomplete treatment response as well as the comparative efficacy of drug combinations and sequencing. We also survey three approaches to the development of innovative anxiety treatments: the continued development of drugs based on specific neuroreceptors; the pharmacologigcal manipulation of fear-related memory; and the electrical or electromagnetic stimulation of specific brain areas. We highlight directions for future research, as none of these approaches is ready for clinical use. This record was migrated from the OpenDepot repository service in June, 2017 before shutting down