Citation

Corchs F, Schiller D. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. 2019; 26: 62-68.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.cobeha.2018.10.007

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Defensive motivation, broadly defined as the orchestrated optimization of defensive functions, encapsulates core components of threat-related psychopathology. The exact relationship between defensive functions and stress-induced symptoms, however, is not entirely clear. Here we review how some of the most important behavioral and neurological findings related to threat-related disorders -- lowering response threshold to threats, facilitated learning and generalization to new threatening cues, reduced appetitive sensitivity, and resistance to extinction of the defensive state -- map onto defensive motivational states, highlighting evidence that supports conjecturing threat-related disorders as persistent motivational states. We propose a mechanism for the perpetuation of the motivational state, progressively converting temporary defensive functions into persistent defensive states associated with distress and impairment.

Language: en