Bionomics Limited company announced the online publication of their paper entitled Cholinergic Modulation of Disorder-Relevant Human Defensive Behaviour in Generalised Anxiety Disorder authored by Perkins et. al. in the peer-reviewed journal Translational Psychiatry 11:13 (2021). Using a computerised test of human threat-avoidance or defensive behaviour called the Joystick Operated Runway Task, BNC210 significantly reduced Flight Intensity relative to placebo in 21 female GAD patients. The same patients also reported significantly reduced levels of anxiety following administration of BNC210 compared to placebo, providing a behavioural-emotional link that suggests BNC210 has general promise as a drug to treat anxiety. Additional data from the same study were published last year (Wise et. al., Cholinergic Modulation of Disorder-Relevant Neural Circuits in Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Biological Psychiatry 87:908-915, 2020) and showed, with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain, that BNC210 treatment significantly reduced amygdala reactivity to "fearful faces" relative to placebo and reduced connectivity between the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex network in GAD patients. fMRI studies have previously shown that GAD is associated with hyperactivity and connectivity in the amygdala-anterior cingulate cortex networks in the brain, and the normalisation of this irregular activity is thought to be critical for successful anxiety treatment. BNC210, Bionomics' proprietary compound, is a novel, negative allosteric modulator (NAM) of the alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (7 nAChR) in development for the treatment of anxiety and stressor-related disorders. It has been granted Fast Track designation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related and stress-related disorders.