Abstract
<p>Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent neuropsychiatric disorder worldwide, and women are approximately twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder over their lifetime. Maladaptive avoidance is a defining feature of this disorder; therefore, considering how sex as a biological variable impacts these processes is critical. This review focuses on preclinical rodent studies of active avoidance and aims to uncover whether there are any sex differences in the behavioral expression of active avoidance and the neural substrates that guide this behavior. We provide an overview of behavioral processes that have been reported in the two-way shuttle, lever-press, and platform-mediated avoidance tasks, followed by the neural mechanisms within the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and other regions recruited in these tasks. These findings have implications for ethological and clinical relevance in understanding how the behavioral and neural processes of active avoidance go awry in anxiety and other neuropsychiatric disorders.</p>