Indeed, LeDoux believes that a true understanding of anxiety lies in an exploration of one of the most complex subjects left in neuroscience: The nature of consciousness (the subject of his recent book, The Deep History of Ourselves).
事實上，勒杜認為，對焦慮的真正理解在于探索神經科學中最復雜的課題之一：意識的本質(這是他最近的一本書《我們自身的深刻歷史》的主題)。
While the amygdala or the BNST prime our bodies to react defensively by activating hormonal cascades and defensive behaviors, our minds—the higher-level processing areas of the brain—give meaning to what we are experiencing. In a way, what we call "fear" and "anxiety" are manifestations of our consciousness. Any truly effective treatment for anxiety, LeDoux argues, will require a better understanding of processes beyond the ancient brain structures that trigger behaviors and release hormones, extending to what creates our awareness of self.
當杏仁核或終紋床核啟動我們的身體通過激活激素級聯和防御行為來做出防御反應時，我們的大腦——大腦的高級處理區域——賦予我們所經歷的意義。在某種程度上，我們所說的“恐懼”和“焦慮”是我們意識的表現。勒杜認為，任何真正有效的治療焦慮的方法，都需要更好地理解那些觸發行為和釋放激素的古老大腦結構之外的過程，進而延伸到創造我們自我意識的東西。
We all have an anxiety "set-point," a state we are likely to return to throughout life. Although this is partially genetically determined, a growing body of research suggests that it can be molded by life experience. In one 2011 study, for instance, Virginia Commonwealth University psychiatrist Charles Gardner and his collaborators examined nine data sets of longitudinal studies of 12,000 twins across three continents, and examined self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression at different stages of their lives. While the set points for 10-year-old identical twins were the same or very close to one another, they diverged sharply as the twins moved through adolescence and into adulthood, which suggests that genetic predisposition played only a part.
我們都有一個焦慮的“設定值”，一個我們可能會在一生中回到的狀態。雖然這部分是由基因決定的，但越來越多的研究表明，它可以由生活經驗塑造。例如，在2011年的一項研究中，弗吉尼亞聯邦大學的精神病學家查爾斯·加德納和他的合作者對來自三大洲的1.2萬名雙胞胎進行了九組縱向研究，并檢查了他們在人生不同階段自我報告的焦慮和抑郁癥狀。雖然10歲的同卵雙胞胎的設定值是相同的，或者非常接近，但隨著雙胞胎從青春期進入成年期，設定值急劇偏離，這表明遺傳傾向只起了一部分作用。
LeDoux argues individual experience exerts its influence on the set point in part through the development of "mental schema," sets of memories organized around a topic that are activated every time you're in a potentially fear- or anxiety-inducing situation. We might "fear" failing an exam at school because our parents told us that we would never succeed, or we heard the exam was hard or perhaps we failed a previous one. Each time we walk into an exam room, we carry a sense of anxiety into it. Even were it possible to deactivate the BNST and amygdala with a drug, LeDoux says, these mental schema would still interfere with our taking the test.
勒杜認為，個體經驗對設定值的影響部分是通過“心理圖式”的發展來實現的。“心理圖式”是圍繞某個話題組織起來的一系列記憶，每當你處于潛在的恐懼或焦慮情境時，這些記憶就會被激活。我們可能會“害怕”在學校考試不及格，因為我們的父母告訴我們，我們永遠不會成功，或者我們聽說考試很難，或者也許我們以前失敗了。每次走進考場，我們都會有一種焦慮感。勒杜說，即使可以用藥物使終紋床核和杏仁核失活，這些心理圖式仍然會干擾我們進行測試。
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