Coordinated dysregulation of the hippocampus-amygdala-prefrontal cortex circuit in anxiety and depressive disorders: A narrative review

Table 2 Functional roles and proposed alterations of the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex in anxiety and depressive disorders

Brain region	Main functional role	Proposed alteration in anxiety disorders	Proposed alteration in depressive disorders	Clinical relevance
Hippocampus	Contextual memory, stress-related adaptation, and safety-threat discrimination	Impaired contextual discrimination and fear generalization	Negative memory bias and impaired contextual updating	Excessive worry, avoidance, rumination, and difficulty updating emotional meaning
Amygdala	Emotional salience, threat detection, and fear learning	Increased threat sensitivity and hypervigilance	Heightened response to negative emotional information	Fear, negative affect, emotional persistence, and increased salience of adverse experiences
Prefrontal cortex	Top-down regulation, cognitive control, and emotional appraisal	Insufficient or maladaptive control of threat responses	Impaired regulation of negative affect and repetitive thinking	Emotional dysregulation, cognitive inflexibility, rumination, and impaired reappraisal