How do anti-anxiety medications work?
Each of the anxiety disorders, and indeed most psychiatric disorders, involves particular circuits in the brain. These circuits are made up of different nerve cells that communicate with each other via particular chemicals. Each cell has specific receptors on which these chemicals act; in other words there are different keys which open and close different locks, so in turn switching the relevant brain circuits down or up. Many people think of psychiatric medications as sledgehammers, which essentially act to mangle the brain and control its behaviour. In fact, medications for anxiety disorders act at very specific places in the brain. Modern drugs can be thought of in terms of acting as an extra 1 or 2 keys in the brain; they further open or close quite specific locks, and so switch particular false alarms down. In order for a medication to act as a key, it has to have a very specific configuration; medications with only slightly different shapes may act at quite different locks. Are a
