The Natural Course of Shyness and Related Syndromes

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the influences of hormones on brain development and how these effects have implications for understanding the development of both shyness and disease. It reviews studies of hormone action that illuminate these principles and illustrate the rapidly increasing understanding of the lifelong interactions between genes and environment as they affect the progression toward disease. The data presented display some of the new information indicating that the brain is a plastic and ever-changing organ of the body and is very much influenced by life experiences. It appears very likely that the condition of extreme fear and shyness offers to a lifelong pattern of allostatic load and that structural and functional correlates will be found to exist in the brains of those individuals who are extremely shy and fearful.