**3. Conclusion**

Phytochemical nutrients that are used to reduce anxiety may have this affect in part by stimulating neuroplasticity and altering the brain neurocircuitry associated with learned responses to stressors and threats. Fourteen of the roughly forty-five plant and plant extracts proven to reduce anxiety in humans in clinical trials are also able to act like neurotrophins; endogenous molecules that stimulate neuroplasticity in the human brain. Anxiolytic drugs are harsh and symptoms return when the drug is removed because the neurotransmitter chemistry returns to an imbalance. Neuroplasticity offers an opportunity to use food phytochemicals along with drugs or in their place to learn to establish more appropriate responses to perceived threats by reworking neural connections. These new neural connections may not be lost even when the anxiolytic treatment is removed. Using neuroplastic drugs and foods to not only alter brain chemistry, but also the circuitry, would be a tremendous advancement in the treatment of anxiety.
