BDNF and anxiety disorder: Additionally, studies in human post-mortem brains have shown an involvement of BDNF in the pathophysiology of stress-related psychopathologies, such as mood and anxiety disorders (Duman and Monteggia, 2006; Carola et al., 2008; Dunham et al., 2009) and a review by Molendijk et al. (2012) suggests that BDNF expression contributes to psychopathological characteristics.