Fear (the feeling of a discrete threat exerted for instance by a person or an object) and anxiety (the diffuse sensation of being scared, for instance in a situation that is considered unsafe) are important adaptive components of the behaviour, which are generated in anticipation of or in response to potentially harmful stimuli. Anxiety or anxiety-like states are considered as part of a universal survival strategy, where inter-individual variability reflects an evolutionary principle for survival of the population. However, extreme alterations or a distortion of these behavioral mechanisms may trigger disproportional and prolonged states of anxiety that are difficult to cope with and to control by the ones affected: such states are experienced, for instance, as excessive anxiety with respect to the triggering stimulus, persistence of anxiety following withdrawal of the stimulus or omnipresent generalized anxiety. This sort of maladaptive anxiety likely reflects an underlying pathology, an anxiety disorder, requiring treatment. In fact, anxiety disorders are ranked among the most frequent psychiatric disorders (life time prevalence 14-29% in the EU), and among those with earliest disease onset. Such a disease has a dramatic impact on life quality, learning and other intellectual capabilities, ability to work and to socially interact. (cf Neuroforum 3.13, September 2013. Springer-Spektrum. D 13882 F ISSN 0947-0875).

Any attempt of systematic, scientific analyses of these emotions and their pathological alterations requires an interdisciplinary strategy, aiming at the identification of detailed mechanisms and, and the same time, allowing translational approaches, thereby paving the way for novel avenues in diagnosis, therapy and identification of individual risk profiles for the disease. These are the strategic lines, along which the Transregional Collaborative Research Center „Fear, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders (CRC-TRR58)“ has been designed, established and funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) in July 2008. It has been finished after twelve years of funding in December 2020. The center joined scientists from the Universities of Münster, Hamburg, and Würzburg, and a connected group at Mainz University, contributing expertise in molecular biology, genetics, neurophysiology, behavioral biology, psychology, psychiatry and imaging.

This concentration of expertise and interdisciplinary collaborations has been truly unique in this field of research. Together, this scientific concept and the transregional collaborative structure enabled a conceptual overlap between animal experimental and human studies, providing a rational basis for dedicated interdisciplinary and translational approaches. Results of mechanistic principles were imported into clinically oriented studies, and data from patient studies were incorporated into the design of basic research. Making use of this strategy, traditional mostly static views on fear and anxiety have been extended into a dynamic concept, where acute or accumulated environmental influences, nested into genetic dispositions, drive the individual anxiety profile. Strategic aims, which had been defined around the stating period, were largely reached after a decade of collaborative effort: (i) scientifically, understanding of synaptic mechanisms linking gene-environment interactions in distinct pathways of the brain has been complemented by identification of predictive neurobiological markers, paving the way for individualized preventive and therapeutic intervention strategies; (ii) structurally, the research program has attracted excellent scientists in the field and beyond, the young researchers program has sustainably improved the conditions for scientists at an early career step and directed a „new“ generation of scientists towards research on emotion, and through all of this neuroscience has become a significant profiling element of the participating universities; (iii) nationally and internationally, impulses and integrative influences of CRC-TRR58 have strengthened research on fear, anxiety and anxiety disorders, and has provided a promising base for future collaborative concepts on the study of stress- and anxiety-related behaviour.