Figure 1.

Human anxiety and addiction circuits. The BNST is a central node in both anxiety and addiction neurocircuitry. (left) The BNST is centrally located to influence human anxiety responses, with connections to multiple limbic and brainstem regions that mediate defensive response to threat, including the amygdala, anterior insula, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and periaqueductal gray (adapted from Grupe and Nitschke, 2013). (right) The BNST is engaged during the negative emotional stage of withdrawal and interacts with the amygdala and ventral striatum, including the shell of the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area, to mediate negative reinforcement (adapted from Koob and Volkow, 2010). AI, anterior insula; Amyg, amygdala; BNST, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis; Hy, hypothalamus; PAG, periaqueductal gray; VS, ventral striatum.