Directions for Future Research on ETAS Theory and Mental Health

Abstract

This chapter proposes future research related to ETAS Theory’s four levels of analysis. Research at the behavioral level (Level I), particularly, psychological and sociological research, is proposed to test behavioral predictions from ETAS Theory about the association between mental health and beliefs, threats, and safety. Future Level I research should examine more beliefs and more classes of psychiatric symptoms, as well as their lifetime prevalence. The chapter notes that much more cognitive-affective neuroscience research (Level II) is needed to determine the association of many classes of psychiatric symptoms with brain structure and function, and the relationship between beliefs, brain function, and psychiatric symptoms, to test ETAS Theory predictions at this level of analysis. One section of the chapter describes the design of three experiments to test the effects of different religious beliefs on psychiatric symptoms and the activity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and other brain structures implicated by ETAS Theory to be involved in processing beliefs and the threat assessments that underlie psychiatric symptoms. The studies contrast the effects of beliefs that should enhance or reduce the perceptions of threat. Level III involves detailed neuro-anatomical and neuro-physiological analyses to define the specific neural circuits or networks that comprise different ETAS and determine how they operate. Level IV is an evolutionary level of analysis that uses the methodology of comparative anatomy and comparative behavior to understand the evolutionary origins of psychiatric disorders as well as beliefs.