Background: Several computerised cognitive behaviour therapy (cCBT) packages are now available to treat mild to moderate depression with or without anxiety. These have been usually been reviewed alongside cCBT for a wide range of psychological problems. Here, we single out the results of these reviews for the most common mental disorder, mild to moderate depression. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the quality of existing reviews and to enable reliable comparisons of alternative computer packages for the same patient group. Methods: A thorough search and analysis of reviews of efficacy of cCBT published between 1999 and February 2011.

Rodents display characteristic defense responses to predators that are influenced by predatory imminence. The midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG) serves an important role controlling these responses. The most influential model states that variations in defensive topography are due to distinct PAG regions: ventrolateral PAG (VLPAG) controls postencounter defense, such as freezing and immobility, whereas lateral PAG (LPAG) controls circa-strike defense, such as escape and flight. Here we used channel rhodopsin (ChR2) stimulation to probe the structure of defensive behavior controlled by LPAG and VLPAG. Suprathreshold LPAG stimulation evoked circa-strike defense that was replaced by freezing at stimulation offset. Suprathreshold VLPAG stimulation evoked postencounter--freezing and immobility--but never circa-strike defense. More interestingly, the topography of defensive behavior evoked from LPAG scaled with variations in 465 nm light power. As light power increased, LPAG animals expressed the full defensive syntax of freezing then activity then flight characteristic of increasing predatory imminence. In contrast, the frequency, not topography, of defensive behavior evoked from VLPAG scaled with variations in light power. These findings suggest that LPAG and VLPAG can control variations in defense with increasing predatory imminence in 2 ways. First, consistent with past models, topographical variation can be assembled from different defensive responses controlled by the LPAG (circa-strike) and VLPAG (postencounter). Second, topographical variation can be assembled from variations in LPAG activity itself. (PsycINFO Database Record

Chronic administration of CBD produced an anxiogenic-like effect in clear opposition to the acute anxiolytic profile previously reported. In addition, CBD decreased the expression of proteins that have been shown to be enhanced by chronic treatment with antidepressant/anxiolytic drugs.

The major phytocannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD) has anxiolytic properties and lacks tetrahydrocannabinol-like psychoactivity. Cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) is the acidic precursor to CBD, and this compound appears more potent than CBD in animal models of emesis, pain and epilepsy. In this short report, we aimed to examine whether CBDA is more potent than CBD in disrupting expression of conditioned fear and generalised anxiety-related behaviour induced by Pavlovian fear conditioning. Mice underwent fear conditioning and 24 h later were administered CBD and CBDA before testing for fear expression and generalized anxiety-like behaviour. We found that CBD and CBDA had dissociable effects; while CBD but not CBDA disrupted cued fear memory expression, CBDA but not CBD normalized trauma-induced generalized anxiety-related behaviour. Neither phytocannabinoid affected contextual fear expression. Our findings form the basis for future experiments examining whether phytocannabinoids, alone and in combination, are effective in these mouse models of fear and anxiety.