Anxiety and behavioral arousal

Clarification of the concepts of motivation, emotion, and anxiety is aided by 3 different approaches: (a) physiological indicants of behavioral arousal such as EMGs and EEGs, (b) experimental studies with psychiatric patients which show that anxiety should be restricted to the chronic pathological condition where the patient is physiologically overactive to every stimulating situation, and (c) the formulation of plausible hypotheses concerning the nature and etiology of anxiety. Anxiety can be produced in organisms by keeping the arousal level very high for long periods. On the basis of neurophysiological data continuous overarousal may result in damage of central inhibitory mechanisms. 42 references.