Abstract
This chapter proposes future research related to ETAS Theory’s four levels of analysis. Research at the behavioral level (Level I), particularly, psychological and sociological research, is proposed to test behavioral predictions from ETAS Theory about the association between mental health and beliefs, threats, and safety. Future Level I research should examine more beliefs and more classes of psychiatric symptoms, as well as their lifetime prevalence. The chapter notes that much more cognitive-affective neuroscience research (Level II) is needed to determine the association of many classes of psychiatric symptoms with brain structure and function, and the relationship between beliefs, brain function, and psychiatric symptoms, to test ETAS Theory predictions at this level of analysis. One section of the chapter describes the design of three experiments to test the effects of different religious beliefs on psychiatric symptoms and the activity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and other brain structures implicated by ETAS Theory to be involved in processing beliefs and the threat assessments that underlie psychiatric symptoms. The studies contrast the effects of beliefs that should enhance or reduce the perceptions of threat. Level III involves detailed neuro-anatomical and neuro-physiological analyses to define the specific neural circuits or networks that comprise different ETAS and determine how they operate. Level IV is an evolutionary level of analysis that uses the methodology of comparative anatomy and comparative behavior to understand the evolutionary origins of psychiatric disorders as well as beliefs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Technically, its name is the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.
- 2.
The “aversive amplification circuit” consists of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulated gyrus, and the amygdala.
References
Flannelly, K.J., Galek, K., Ellison, C.G., & Koenig, H.G. (2010). Beliefs about God, psychiatric symptoms, and evolutionary psychiatry. Journal of Religion & Health, 49(2), 246–261.
Silton, N.R., Flannelly, K.J., Galek, K., & Ellison, C.G. (2014). Beliefs about God and mental health among American adults. Journal of Religion and Health, 53(5), 1285–1296.
Gaudette, H., & Jankowski, K.R. (2013). Spiritual coping and anxiety in palliative care patients: A pilot study. Journal of Health Care Chaplaincy, 19(4), 131–139.
Gilbert, P. (1993). Defence and safety: Their function in social behaviour and psychopathology. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 32(Pt 2), 131–153.
Arndt, J., Routledge, C., Cox, C.R., & Goldenberg, J.L. (2005). The worm at the core: A terror management perspective on the roots of psychological dysfunction. Applied & Preventive Psychology, 11(3), 191.
Dechesne, M., Arndt, J., Ransom, S., Sheldon, K.M., Pyszczynski, T., Van Knippenberg, A., et al. (2003). Literal and symbolic immortality: The effect of evidence of literal immortality on self-esteem striving in response to mortality salience. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 84(4), 722–737.
Pyszczynsi, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt, J., & Schimel, J. (2004). Why do people need self-esteem? A theoretical and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 435–468.
Martens, A., Greenberg, J., & Allen, J.J.B. (2008). Self-esteem and autonomic physiology: Parallels between self-esteem and cardiac vagal tone as buffers of threat. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12(4), 370–389.
Baldwin, M.W., & Wesley, R. (1996). Effects of existential anxiety and self-esteem on the perception of others. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 18(1), 75–94.
Karademas, E.C., Kafetsios, K., & Sideridis, G.D. (2007). Optimism, self-efficacy and information processing of threat- and well-being-related stimuli. Stress and Health, 23(5), 285–294.
Gruenewald, T.L., Aziz, N., Fahey, J.L., & Kemeny, M.E. (2004). Acute threat to the social self: Shame, social self-esteem, and cortisol activity. Psychosomatic Medicine, 66(6), 915–924.
Houston, B.K., Olson, M., & Botkin, A. (1972). Trait anxiety and beliefs regarding danger and threat to self-esteem. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 38(1), 152.
van Dellen, M.R., Campbell, W.K., Hoyle, R.H., & Bradfield, E.K. (2001). Compensating, resisting, and breaking: A meta-analytic examination of reactions to self-esteem threat. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(1), 51–74.
Leary, M.R., Barnes, B.D., & Griebel, C. (1986). Cognitive, affective, and attributional effects of potential threats to self-esteem. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 4(4), 461.
Elllison, C.G., Flannelly, K.J., & Barrie, C.K. (2014, November 1). Do afterlife beliefs moderate the association between recent serious illness and symptoms of anxiety-related disorders? Paper presented at the National Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Indianapolis, IN.
Nesse, R. (1998). Emotional disorders in evolutionary perspective. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 71(4), 397–415.
Nesse, R.M. (1984). An evolutionary perspective on psychiatry. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 25(6), 575–580.
Nesse, R.M. (1987). An evolutionary perspective on panic disorder and agoraphobia. Ethology & Sociobiology, 8, 73S–83S.
Nesse, R.M. (1990). Evolutionary explanations of emotions. Human Nature, 1(3), 261–289.
Grillon, C. (2008). Models and mechanisms of anxiety: Evidence from startle studies. Psychopharmacology, 199(3), 421–437.
Walker, D.L., Toufexis, D.J., & Davis, M. (2003). Role of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis versus the amygdala in fear, stress, and anxiety. European Journal of Pharmacology, 463(1), 199–216.
Munsterkotter, A.L., Notzon, S., Redlich, R., Grotegerd, D., Dohm, K., Arolt, V., et al. (2015). Spider or no spider? Neural correlates of sustained and phasic fear in spider phobia. Depression and Anxiety, 32(9), 656–663.
Robinson, O.J., Krimsky, M., Lieberman, L., Allen, P., Vytal, K., & Grillon, C. (2014). Towards a mechanistic understanding of pathological anxiety: The dorsal medial prefrontal-amygdala “aversive amplification” circuit in unmedicated generalized and social anxiety disorders. The Lancet. Psychiatry, 1(4), 294.
Ochsner, K.N., Bunge, S.A., Gross, J.J., & Gabrieli, J.D. (2002). Rethinking feelings: An fMRI study of the cognitive regulation of emotion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(8), 1215–1229.
Ochsner, K.N., & Gross, J.J. (2005). The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Science, 9(5), 242–249.
Ochsner, K.N., Knierim, K., Ludlow, D.H., Hanelin, J., Ramachandran, T., Glover, G., et al. (2004). Reflecting upon feelings: An fMRI study of neural systems supporting the attribution of emotion to self and other. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(10), 1746–1772.
Ochsner, K.N., Ray, R.D., Cooper, J.C., Robertson, E.R., Chopra, S., Gabrieli, J.D., et al. (2004). For better or for worse: Neural systems supporting the cognitive down- and up-regulation of negative emotion. Neuroimage, 23(2), 483–499.
Greenberg, T., Carlson, J.M., Cha, J., Hajcak, G., & Mujica-Parodi, L.R. (2013). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex reactivity is altered in generalized anxiety disorder during fear generalization. Depression and Anxiety, 30(3), 242–250.
Motzkin, J.C., Philippi, C.L., Wolf, R.C., Koenigs, M., & Baskaya, M.K. (2015). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is critical for the regulation of amygdala activity in humans. Biological Psychiatry, 77(3), 276–284.
Magee, W.J., Eaton, W.W., Wittchen, H.U., McGonagle, K.A., & Kessler, R.C. (1996). Agoraphobia, simple phobia, and social phobia in the national comorbidity survey. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53, 159–168.
Kessler, R.C., McGonagle, K.A., Zhao, S., Nelson, C.B., Hughes, M., Eshleman, S., et al. (1994). Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders in the United States: Results from the National Comorbidity Study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 51(1), 8–19.
Yang, J., Xu, X., Chen, Y., Shi, Z., & Han, S. (2016). Trait self-esteem and neural activities related to self-evaluation and social feedback. Scientific Reports, 6. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4740758/pdf/srep20274.pdf
Pan, W., Liu, C., Yang, Q., Gu, Y., Yin, S., & Chen, A. (2016). The neural basis of trait self-esteem revealed by the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations and resting state functional connectivity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, nsv119. Retrieved from http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/11/3/367.short
Mulders, P.C., van Eijndhoven, P.F., Schene, A.H., Beckmann, C.F., & Tendolkar, I. (2015). Resting-state functional connectivity in major depressive disorder: A review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 56, 330–344.
Mochcovitch, M.D., da Rocha Freire, R.C., Garcia, R.F., & Nardi, A.E. (2014). A systematic review of fMRI studies in generalized anxiety disorder: Evaluating its neural and cognitive basis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 167, 336–342.
Hilbert, K., Lueken, U., & Beesdo-Baum, K. (2014). Neural structures, functioning and connectivity in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and interaction with neuroendocrine systems: A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 158, 114–126.
Bruhl, A.B., Delsignore, A., Komossa, K., & Weidt, S. (2014). Neuroimaging in social anxiety disorder – A meta-analytic review resulting in a new neurofunctional model. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 47, 260–280.
Jang, J.H., Kim, J.-H., Jung, W.H., Choi, J.-S., Jung, M.H., Lee, J.-M., et al. (2010). Functional connectivity in fronto-subcortical circuitry during the resting state in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Neuroscience Letters, 474(3), 158–162.
Harrison, B.J., Soriano-Mas, C., Pujol, J., Ortiz, H., Lopez-Sola, M., Hernández-Ribas, R., et al. (2009). Altered corticostriatal functional connectivity in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 66(11), 1189–1200.
Kasper, S., Gryglewski, G., & Lanzenberger, R. (2014). Imaging brain circuits in anxiety disorders. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(4), 251–252.
Fiala, A., Suska, A., & Schluter, O.M. (2010). Optogenetic approaches in neuroscience. Current Biology, 20(20), R897-R903.
Kravitz, A.V., & Kreitzer, A.C. (2011). Optogenetic manipulation of neural circuitry in vivo. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 21(3), 433–439.
Johansen, J.P., Wolff, S.B.E., Luthi, A., & LeDoux, J.E. (2012). Controlling the elements: An optogenetic approach to understanding the neural circuits of fear. Biological Psychiatry, 71(12), 1053–1060.
LeDoux, J.E. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 23(1), 155–184.
Gold, J.I., & Shadlen, M.N. (2007). The neural basis of decision making. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 30, 535–574.
Gold, J.I., & Shadlen, M.N. (2001). Neural computations that underlie decisions about sensory stimuli. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(1), 10–16.
Averbeck, B.B., & Lee, D. (2004). Coding and transmission of information by neural ensembles. Trends in Neuroscience, 27(4), 225–230.
Winecoff, A., Clithero, J.A., Carter, R.M., Bergman, S.R., Wang, L.H., & Huettel, S.A. (2013). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex encodes emotional value. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(27), 11032–11039.
Fellous, J.-M., Armony, J.L., & LeDoux, J.E. (2002). Emotional circuits and computational neuroscience. In M.A. Arbib (Ed.), The handbook of brain theory and neural networks. 2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
LeDoux, J.E. (1995). Emotion: Clues from the brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 209–235.
Phelps, E. A., & LeDoux, J. E. (2005). Contributions of the amygdala to emotion processing: From animal models to human behavior. Neuron, 48, 175–187.
Blanchard, D.C., Griebel, G., & Blanchard, R.J. (2001). Mouse defensive behaviors: Pharamacological and behavioral assays for anxiety and panic. Neuroscience and Behavioral Reviews, 25, 205–218.
Blanchard, D.C., Griebel, G., & Blanchard, R.J. (2003). The mouse defense test battery: Pharmacological and behavioral assays for anxiety and panic. European Journal of Pharmacology, 463(1), 97–116.
Blanchard, R.J., Flannelly, K.J., & Blanchard, D.C. (1986). Defensive behaviors of laboratory and wild Rattus norvegicus. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 100(2), 101–107.
Flannelly, K., & Lore, R. (1977). The influence of females upon aggression in domesticated male rats (Rattus norvegicus). Animal Behaviour, 25, 654–659.
Flannelly, K.J., & Thor, D.H. (1978). Territorial aggression of the rat to males castrated at various ages. Physiology & Behavior, 20(6), 785–789.
Blanchard, R.J., Kleinschmidt, C.K., Flannelly, K.J., & Blanchard, D.C. (1984). Fear and aggression in the rat. Aggressive Behavior, 10(4), 309–315.
Blanchard, D.C., Williams, G., Lee, E.M.C., & Blanchard, R.J. (1981). Taming of wild Rattus norvegicus by lesions of the mesencephalic central gray. Physiological Psychology, 9(2), 157–163.
Grant, E.C., & Mackintosh, J.H. (1963). A comparison of the social postures of some common laboratory rodents. Behaviour, 21(3), 246–259.
Liu, C., & Cerny, V. (1976). Release of grooming responses in basal ganglia and thalamic cats. Anatomical Record, 184(3), 464.
Strazielle, C., Lefevre, A., Jacquelin, C., & Lalonde, R. (2012). Abnormal grooming activity in Dab1 scm (scrambler) mutant mice. Behavioural Brain Research, 233(1), 24–28.
Cromwell, H.C., & Berridge, K.C. (1996). Implementation of action sequences by a neostriatal site: A lesion mapping study of grooming syntax. Journal of Neuroscience, 16(10), 3444–3458.
Thompson, R., Huestis, P.W., Shea, C.N., Crinella, F.M., & Yu, Y. (1990). Brain structures important for solving a sawdust-digging problem in the rat. Physiology & Behavior, 48(1), 107–111.
Aldridge, J.W., Berridge, K.C., & Rosen, A.R. (2004). Basal ganglia neural mechanisms of natural movement sequences. Canadian Journal of Physiological Pharmacology, 82, 732–739.
Langen, M., Durston, S., Kas, M.J.H., van Engeland, H., & Staal, W.G. (2010). The neurobiology of repetitive behavior: And men. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(3), 356–365.
Langen, M., Kas, M.J.H., Staal, W.G., van Engeland, H., & Durston, S. (2010). The neurobiology of repetitive behavior: Of mice. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(3), 345–355.
Baxter Jr, L.R., Clark, E.C., Ackermann, R.F., Lacan, G., & Melega, W.P. (2001). Brain mediation of Anolis social dominance displays. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 57(4), 184–201.
Baxter, L.R. (2003). Basal ganglia systems in ritualistic social displays: Reptiles and humans; function and illness. Physiology & Behavior, 79, 451–460.
Baxter, L.R., Jr., Ackermann, R.F., Clark, E.C., & Baxter, J.E. (2001). Brain mediation of Anolis social dominance displays. I. Differential basal ganglia activation. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 57(4), 169–183.
MacLean, P.D. (1977). The Triune brain in conflict. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 28, 207–220.
Baxter Jr, L.R. (2001). Brain mediation of Anolis social dominance displays: III. Differential forebrain (3) H-sumatriptan binding to dominant vs. submissive males. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 57(4), 202–213.
Gorlick, D.L. (1990). Neural pathway for aggressive display in Betta splendens: Midbrain and hindbrain control of gill-cover erection display. Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 36(4), 227–236.
Winberg, S., & Nilsson, G.E. (1993). Roles of brain monoamine neurotransmitters in agonistic behaviour and stress reactions, with particular reference to fish. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C: Pharmacology, Toxicology and Endocrinology, 106(3), 597–614.
Winberg, S., Myrberg Jr, A.A., & Nilsson, G.E. (1996). Agonistic interactions affect brain serotonergic activity in an acanthopterygiian fish: The bicolor damselfish (Pomacentrus partitus). Brain, Behavior and Evolution, 48(4), 213–220.
Anderson, J.J. (1988). A neural model for visual activation of startle behavior in fish. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 131(3), 279–288.
Yasargil, G.M., & Diamond, J. (1968). Startle-response in teleost fish: An elementary circuit for neural discrimination. Nature, 220(October 18), 241–243.
Goodson, J.L. (2005). The vertebrate social behavior network: Evolutionary themes and variations. Hormones and Behavior, 48(1), 11–22.
Maximino, C., Lima, M.G., Oliveira, K.R.M., de Batista, E.J.O., & Herculano, A.M. (2013). “Limbic associative” and “autonomic” amygdala in teleosts: A review of the evidence. Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy, 48, 1–13.
Martin, A., & Santos, L.R. (2014). The origins of belief representation: Monkeys fail to automatically represent others’ beliefs. Cognition, 130(3), 300–308.
Povinelli, D.J., & Giambrone, S. (2001). Reasoning about beliefs: A human specialization? Child Development, 72(3), 691–695.
Wolpert, L. (2007). Six impossible things before breakfast: The evolutionary origins of beliefs. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Flannelly, K.J. (2008). Review of the book Six impossible things before breakfast: The evolutionary origins of beliefs by L. Wolpert. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 196(7), 581–582.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Flannelly, K.J. (2017). Directions for Future Research on ETAS Theory and Mental Health. In: Religious Beliefs, Evolutionary Psychiatry, and Mental Health in America. Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52488-7_31
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52488-7_31
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52487-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-52488-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)