Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Serotonin (5-HT) is heavily implicated in severe anxiety and trauma-related disor-ders, such as panic and post-traumatic stress disorders. Overall, site-specific pharmacolog-ical manipulations show that while 5-HT enhances anxiety-associated/avoidance behaviors in the amygdala, 5-HT inhibits panic-associated escape behaviors in the perifornical hypo-thalamus region (PeFR). Yet, our understanding of how specific serotonergic networks and co-transmitters regulate these conditions, but also other aspects of innate panic (e.g., car-dioexcitation or thermal response that occur during a flight or escape response) or condi-tioned fear behaviors is still elusive. Therefore, utilizing circuit-based gain- and loss-of-function approaches to selectively manipulate amygdala- and PeFR-projecting sero-tonergic systems, we hypothesize that specific serotonergic networks projecting to the amygdala and PeFR respectively enhance conditioned fear responses and attenuate innate panic-associated behaviors and physiological responses. There are two main chapters in this dissertation. In Chapter III, retrograde tracing revealed that the amygdala-projecting neurons from dorsal Raphe (DR) were almost exclusively serotonergic (92-95%) concen-trated in the dorsal/ventral (DRD/DRV) DR, with few non-serotonergic neurons. While selective lesioning of this network with saporin toxin (SAP) facilitated the extinction of conditioned fear behavior, selective optogenetic activation of amygdala-projecting DRD/DRV cell bodies using intersectional genetics reduced extinction of conditioned fear behavior and enhanced anxiety avoidance. In Chapter IV, retrograde tracing showed that the PeFR was innervated by equally selective serotonergic networks concentrated in the lateral wings DR (lwDR) and median Raphe (MR). Contrasting with the results from the amygdala-innervating 5-HT system, lesioning the PeFR-projecting serotonergic network from lwDR/MR was accompanied by reduced extinction of conditioned fear behavior, in-creased anxiety avoidance, and increased CO2-induced panic (elevated escape responses and enhanced cardioexcitation). Conversely, selective activation of lwDR/MR serotonergic terminals in the PeFR decreased anxiety-associated behaviors; inhibited CO2-induced panic, and induced unconditioned and conditioned place preferences. The circuit-based ap-proach data presented here show that amygdala- and PeFR-projecting 5-HT neurons com-prise distinct circuits underlying opposite roles enhancing anxiety/fear responses in the amygdala and dampening fear/panic responses in the PeFR. The identification of distinct circuits controlling anxiety, fear, and panic responses is a fundamental step towards the development of more effective therapies for psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and trauma-related disorders. / 2021-11-04

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In this long form narrative poem, the speaker is led out into the wilderness and encounters panic in the form of the god Pan. Pan appears in Greek mythology as a raucous god of revelry at times and as moody and destructive in his anger and brutality at other times. This is how panic attacks find her. In writing this project I wanted a character I could tack the panic on, a character I could address, understand, and defeat. Instead what I found was myself, and wildness.

SARAH ADJEKUM B.A., B.S.W. A Research Project Submitted to the School of Social Work in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Social Work McMaster University 2016 / As observed with the ongoing migrant crises, media coverage of refugee and asylum seekers connects the concepts of mental health and trauma to their experiences. The resulting discourse around refugees pathologizes the refugee identity and simultaneously obscures the violence that necessitates their departure from their home countries. As refugee discourse incorporates discourses of mental health, it also legitimizes nation state’s practice social control towards these populations through detention. As the utilization of technologies of securitization is normalized, detention has become increasingly accepted as a response to humanitarian crises. Past research on detention has consistently demonstrated the harmful effects it has on children, adults, and especially individuals with symptoms of mental illness. In particular, research drawing on trauma and mental health discourse has been effective in bringing attention to the counterproductive outcomes of detention. This paper is concerned with the employment of discourses of mental health and trauma by mainstream media as they pertain to the treatment of migrants in detention in Canada. It explores the media’s role in the re(creation) of refugee discourse and purveyors of racial ideology that problematizes people of colour and demands state intervention in the form of mental health aid. Using critical discourse analysis, it contrasted mainstream media coverage of four major publications on detention. This study finds prevalent use of mental health discourse and little mention of violence in several online publications. It also finds that recommendations made in the articles emphasized micro and mezzo focused changes that are unable to challenge federal policy that enables securitization. Nor is it capable of addressing the forms of violence inherent to the mental health system. As such, this paper makes recommendations for a critical examination of refugee and immigration policy that takes into account the states’ participation in the creation of refugee crises. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

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American Monsters: Tabloid Media and the Satanic Panic, 1970-2000," analyzes an episode of national hysteria that dominated the media throughout most of the 1980s. Its origins, however, go back much farther and its consequences for the media would extend into subsequent decades. Rooted in the decade's increasingly influential conservative political ideology, the satanic panic involved hundreds of accusations that devil-worshipping pedophiles were operating America's white middle-class suburban daycare centers. Communities around the country became embroiled in criminal trials against center owners, the most publicized of which was the McMartin Preschool trial in Manhattan Beach, California. The longest and most expensive trial in the nation's history, the McMartin case is an important focal point of this project. In the 1990s, judges overturned the life sentences of defendants in most major cases, and several prominent journalists and lawyers condemned the phenomenon as a witch-hunt. They accurately understood it to be a powerful delusion, or what contemporary cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard termed a "hyperreality," in which audiences confuse the media universe for real life. Presented mainly through tabloid television, or "infotainment," and integral to its development, influence, and success, the panic was a manifestation of the hyperreal. This dissertation explores how the panic both reflected and shaped a cultural climate dominated by the overlapping worldviews of politically active conservatives. In 1980, neoconservatives, libertarians, economic conservatives, and evangelical Christians, who had begun their cultural ascent over the course of the previous decade, were brought together temporarily under the aegis of President Ronald Reagan. With collective strength they implemented their joint agenda, which partly included expanding their influence on the nation's media sources. Coinciding with a backlash against feminism and the gay rights movement, media outlets often represented working women and homosexuals as dangerous to conservative idealized notions of white suburban family life. Such views were incorporated into the panic, which tabloid media reinforced through coverage of alleged sexual abuse of children at day care centers. Infotainment expanded dramatically in the 1980s, selling conservative-defined threats as news. As the satanic panic unfolded through infotainment sub-genres like talk shows and local news programs (first introduced in the late 1940s), its appeal guaranteed the continued presence of the tabloid genre, and reinforced conservative views on gender, race, class, and religion. Although the panic subsided in the early 1990s as journalists and lawyers discredited evidence and judicial decisions turned against accusers, the legacy of the panic continued to influence American culture and politics into the twenty-first century. / History

Nonclinical panic attacks have been defined as "panic reported by individuals not seeking treatment" (Norton, Cox, & Malan, 1992). The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of nonclinical panic attacks and associated symptomatology in a university sample of 576 late adolescents (ages 18-19), and to compare the effectiveness of two group treatments [Education/Support (ES) and Cognitive-Behavioral (CBT)] and a self-monitoring Waitlist (WL) condition in reducing the frequency and severity of nonclinical panic attacks, daily anxiety, and associated symptomatology. Nonpanickers (71.4% of the sample) reported no history of panic on the Panic Attack Questionnaire (PAQ; Cox, Norton, & Swinson, 1992). Past Panickers (16.5%) reported at least one panic attack prior to the past month. Recent Panickers (12.2%) reported at least one panic attack in the past month. Recent Panickers evidenced higher levels of trait anxiety, state anxiety, and depression, with a trend toward higher levels of anxiety sensitivity and internal negative attributions, relative to both Past Panickers and Nonpanickers, who did not differ. Thirty-four Recent Panickers were randomly assigned to the WL, ES, or CBT conditions. The entire sample, regardless of condition, showed a reduction in frequency of panic attacks, as well as their associated symptoms and cognitions, severity of daily anxiety, and three measures of general psychopathology (Le., depression, trait anxiety, and state anxiety). However, both active treatment groups were superior to the waitlist in producing improvement in panic-related self-efficacy, avoidance, and anxiety sensitivity. There was evidence that ES was slightly more effective than CBT in improving panicrelated self-efficacy, while CBT was somewhat more effective in reducing avoidance. Finally, while both treatment conditions combined fared significantly better than the waidist in producing high endstate functioning, assessed via a constellation of variables conceptually related to panic (i.e., panic-free status, high panic-related self-efficacy, low avoidance, low anxiety sensitivity), ES appeared most effective in promoting high ends tate functioning at Post-Treatment and Follow-Up (two months following treatment). Implications of these findings for the treatment of nonclinical panic attacks in late adolescence are discussed. / Ph. D.

This research uses moral panic theory to investigate the ways in which print media coverage influences the association of mental illness with acts of mass violence in schools. I explore the relationship between the rhetoric of moral entrepreneurs (such as victims' friends and family members, law enforcement agencies, criminal justice and mental health professionals, gun rights activists, mayors, members of Congress, and presidents), the construction of a moral panic, and the identification of a folk devil (a person or population deemed responsible for the evils of a society; to be feared and controlled in order to minimize threat). Perpetrators of school shootings are often discussed in terms of their consumption of violent media (such as movies, music, and video games), their access to firearms, their social standing among their peers (socially isolated, ostracized, or bullied at school), and their mental health status. I hypothesize that mental illness has become a common frame in which school shooters are discussed by the media, despite the fact that mentally ill persons are less likely than non-disordered individuals to commit acts of violence. Therefore, this characterization of the mentally ill as violent and dangerous is disproportionate to the actual level of threat. I conduct a quantitative frame analysis of print newspaper articles published in the New York Times and one local newspaper during the month following each mass school shooting between 1991 and 2015, coding for the type of moral entrepreneur (grassroots, interest-group, or elite), the folk devil identified (violent media, firearms, social alienation, and/or mental illness), and whether the folk devil was being affirmed or denied. Results reveal that guns are affirmed as the folk devil more often than mental illness, but are also denied most often; whereas mental illness is affirmed nearly as often as guns, and is less frequently denied as the folk devil — leading to the conclusion that mental illness is the most frequently accepted folk devil associated with school shootings. This serves as a cautionary warning against the conflation of mental illness with mass shootings, because it intensifies the stigma attached to mental illness — a known deterrent to seeking treatment. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to examine children's cognitive interpretations of the physiological symptoms of panic. Children from grades 3, 6, and 9 imagined experiencing the physical symptoms of panic and reported their attributions for these symptoms. Conceptions of common illnesses and panic attacks were assessed. It was hypothesized that girls would make more internal, catastrophic (I/C) attributions to the symptoms of panic than would boys, and that older children would make more I/C attributions relative to younger children. These hypotheses were based on the suggestion that notions of external causality characterize the cognitions of younger children (Nelles & Barlow, 1988), and that girls tend to report higher levels of anxiety and fear relative to boys (Ollendick, King, & Frary, 1989; Ollendick, Yule, & Ollier, 1991). It was also suggested that older children would display more mature conceptions of illness than younger children, and that girls would be more advanced in their understanding of illness than would boys. No differences were predicted between children's level of understanding common illnesses and panic attacks (Nelles & Barlow, 1988). Finally, the contribution of several individual factors to children's cognitive interpretations was investigated. No significant grade or gender differences were found for tendency to make I/C attributions. While no gender differences were evident, a significant main effect for grade was found for conceptions of illness, and understanding of panic attacks was more advanced relative to common illnesses. Finally, internal attributional style in response to negative outcomes and anxiety sensitivity were significant predictors of tendency to make I/C attributions. The relevance of these findings to understanding children's cognitive interpretations of panic symptomatology are discussed. / Master of Science