scholarly journals Discriminative Fear Learners are Resilient to Temporal Distortions during Threat Anticipation

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica I. Lake ◽  
Warren H. Meck ◽  
Kevin S. LaBar

Discriminative fear conditioning requires learning to dissociate between safety cues and cues that predict negative outcomes yet little is known about what processes contribute to discriminative fear learning. According to attentional models of time perception, processes that distract from timing result in temporal underestimation. If discriminative fear learning only requires learning what cues predict what outcomes, and threatening stimuli distract attention from timing, then better discriminative fear learning should predict greater temporal distortion on threat trials. Alternatively, if discriminative fear learning also reflects a more accurate perceptual experience of time in threatening contexts, discriminative fear learning scores would predict less temporal distortion on threat trials, as time is perceived more veridically. Healthy young adults completed discriminative fear conditioning in which they learned to associate one stimulus (CS+) with aversive electrical stimulation and another stimulus (CS−) with non-aversive tactile stimulation and then an ordinal-comparison timing task during which CSs were presented as task-irrelevant distractors. Consistent with predictions, we found an overall temporal underestimation bias on CS+ relative to CS− trials. Differential skin conductance responses to the CS+ versus the CS− during conditioning served as a physiological index of discriminative fear conditioning and this measure predicted the magnitude of the underestimation bias, such that individuals exhibiting greater discriminative fear conditioning showed less underestimation on CS+ versus CS− trials. These results are discussed with respect to the nature of discriminative fear learning and the relationship between temporal distortions and maladaptive threat processing in anxiety.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-France Marin ◽  
Alexe Bilodeau-Houle ◽  
Simon Morand-Beaulieu ◽  
Alexandra Brouillard ◽  
Ryan J. Herringa ◽  
...  

Abstract The biological mechanisms involved in fear transmission within families have been scarcely investigated in humans. Here we studied (1) how children acquired conditioned fear from observing their parent, or a stranger, being exposed to a fear conditioning paradigm, and (2) the subsequent fear extinction process in these children. Eighty-three child-parent dyads were recruited. The parent was filmed while undergoing a conditioning procedure where one cue was paired with a shock (CS + Parent) and one was not (CS −). Children (8 to 12 years old) watched this video and a video of an adult stranger who underwent conditioning with a different cue reinforced (CS + Stranger). Children were then exposed to all cues (no shocks were delivered) while skin conductance responses (SCR) were recorded. Children exhibited higher SCR to the CS + Parent and CS + Stranger relative to the CS −. Physiological synchronization between the child’s SCR during observational learning and the parent’s SCR during the actual process of fear conditioning predicted higher SCR for the child to the CS + Parent. Our data suggest that children acquire fear vicariously and this can be measured physiologically. These data lay the foundation to examine observational fear learning mechanisms that might contribute to fear and anxiety disorders transmission in clinically affected families.


2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.C. Howard ◽  
A. Chaiwutikornwanich

This study combined an individual differences approach to interrogative suggestibility (IS) with ERP recordings to examine two alternative hypotheses regarding the source of individual differences in IS: (1) differences in attention to task-relevant vis-à-vis task-irrelevant stimuli, and (2) differences in one or more memory processes, indexed by ERP old/new effects. Sixty-five female participants underwent an ERP recording during the 50 min interval between immediate and delayed recall of a short story. ERPs elicited by pictures that either related to the story (“old”), or did not relate to the story (“new”), were recorded using a three-stimulus visual oddball paradigm. ERP old/new effects were examined at selected scalp regions of interest at three post-stimulus intervals: early (250-350 ms), middle (350-700 ms), and late (700-1100 ms). In addition, attention-related ERP components (N1, P2, N2, and P3) evoked by story-relevant pictures, story-irrelevant pictures, and irrelevant distractors were measured from midline electrodes. Late (700-1100 ms) frontal ERP old/new differences reflected individual differences in IS, while early (250-350 ms) and middle latency (350-700 ms) ERP old/new differences distinguished good from poor performers in memory and oddball tasks, respectively. Differences in IS were not reflected in ERP indices of attention. Results supported an account of IS as reflecting individual differences in postretrieval memory processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenfu Wen ◽  
Marie-France Marin ◽  
Jennifer Urbano Blackford ◽  
Zhe Sage Chen ◽  
Mohammed R. Milad

AbstractTranslational models of fear conditioning and extinction have elucidated a core neural network involved in the learning, consolidation, and expression of conditioned fear and its extinction. Anxious or trauma-exposed brains are characterized by dysregulated neural activations within regions of this fear network. In this study, we examined how the functional MRI activations of 10 brain regions commonly activated during fear conditioning and extinction might distinguish anxious or trauma-exposed brains from controls. To achieve this, activations during four phases of a fear conditioning and extinction paradigm in 304 participants with or without a psychiatric diagnosis were studied. By training convolutional neural networks (CNNs) using task-specific brain activations, we reliably distinguished the anxious and trauma-exposed brains from controls. The performance of models decreased significantly when we trained our CNN using activations from task-irrelevant brain regions or from a brain network that is irrelevant to fear. Our results suggest that neuroimaging data analytics of task-induced brain activations within the fear network might provide novel prospects for development of brain-based psychiatric diagnosis.


Author(s):  
Julia Reinhard ◽  
Anna Slyschak ◽  
Miriam A. Schiele ◽  
Marta Andreatta ◽  
Katharina Kneer ◽  
...  

AbstractThe aim of the study was to investigate age-related differences in fear learning and generalization in healthy children and adolescents (n = 133), aged 8–17 years, using an aversive discriminative fear conditioning and generalization paradigm adapted from Lau et al. (2008). In the current task, participants underwent 24 trials of discriminative conditioning of two female faces with neutral facial expressions, with (CS+) or without (CS−) a 95-dB loud female scream, presented simultaneously with a fearful facial expression (US). The discriminative conditioning was followed by 72 generalization trials (12 CS+, 12 GS1, 12 GS2, 12 GS3, 12 GS4, and 12 CS−): four generalization stimuli depicting gradual morphs from CS+ to CS− in 20%-steps were created for the generalization phases. We hypothesized that generalization in children and adolescents is negatively correlated with age. The subjective ratings of valence, arousal, and US expectancy (the probability of an aversive noise following each stimulus), as well as skin conductance responses (SCRs) were measured. Repeated-measures ANOVAs on ratings and SCR amplitudes were calculated with the within-subject factors stimulus type (CS+, CS−, GS1-4) and phase (Pre-Acquisition, Acquisition 1, Acquisition 2, Generalization 1, Generalization 2). To analyze the modulatory role of age, we additionally calculated ANCOVAs considering age as covariate. Results indicated that (1) subjective and physiological responses were generally lower with increasing age irrespective to the stimulus quality, and (2) stimulus discrimination improved with increasing age paralleled by reduced overgeneralization in older individuals. Longitudinal follow-up studies are required to analyze fear generalization with regard to brain maturational aspects and clarify whether overgeneralization of conditioned fear promotes the development of anxiety disorders or vice versa.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth P. Bauer ◽  
Denis Paré

Normal fear regulation includes the ability to learn by experience that some circumstances predict danger. This process, which can be modeled in the laboratory using Pavlovian fear conditioning, appears to be disrupted in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Understanding of the mechanisms underlying fear learning has progressed tremendously in the last 25 years, and constitutes a promising paradigm to study the neural bases of PTSD. This chapter first reviews current knowledge of the brain structures involved in fear learning, expression and extinction, including the contributions of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. It then addresses how these circuits are affected by PTSD and how fear processing is altered in PTSD. Understanding PTSD within a fear-conditioning and extinction framework provides insight into why certain individuals are susceptible to developing PTSD and suggests potential therapies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. e100131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hoge ◽  
Eric Bui ◽  
Peter Rosencrans ◽  
Scott Orr ◽  
Rachel Ross ◽  
...  

BackgroundAlthough recent data in healthy humans suggestthat treatment with intranasal oxytocin (OT) may facilitate extinction recall,to date, little is known about the effects of OT on memory consolidationprocesses.AimTo examine the effect of intranasal administration of OT compared with placebo on memory consolidation blockade of a de novo fear memory in a classical 2-day fear conditioning procedure.ResultsThere were no significant differences between the OT and the placebo groups on the first two extinction trials (mean (SD)=0.01 (0.39) vs 0.15 (0.31), t=−1.092, p=0.28). Similarly, during early extinction, analysis of variance for repeated measures failed to show significant main effects of extinction trials: trials (F(4, 112)=1.58, p=0.18), drug (F(1, 112)=0.13, p=0.72) or drug × trials interaction (F(4, 112)=0.76, p=0.56).ConclusionOur results suggest that OT administered in a double-blind fashion immediately after fear conditioning does not significantly reduce consolidation of fear learning as measured by a differential skin conductance response tested at the beginning of extinction.


2010 ◽  
Vol 203 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin L. Zelinski ◽  
Nancy S. Hong ◽  
Amanda V. Tyndall ◽  
Brett Halsall ◽  
Robert J. McDonald

2016 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 695-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Izquierdo ◽  
Cristiane R. G. Furini ◽  
Jociane C. Myskiw

Fear memory is the best-studied form of memory. It was thoroughly investigated in the past 60 years mostly using two classical conditioning procedures (contextual fear conditioning and fear conditioning to a tone) and one instrumental procedure (one-trial inhibitory avoidance). Fear memory is formed in the hippocampus (contextual conditioning and inhibitory avoidance), in the basolateral amygdala (inhibitory avoidance), and in the lateral amygdala (conditioning to a tone). The circuitry involves, in addition, the pre- and infralimbic ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the central amygdala subnuclei, and the dentate gyrus. Fear learning models, notably inhibitory avoidance, have also been very useful for the analysis of the biochemical mechanisms of memory consolidation as a whole. These studies have capitalized on in vitro observations on long-term potentiation and other kinds of plasticity. The effect of a very large number of drugs on fear learning has been intensively studied, often as a prelude to the investigation of effects on anxiety. The extinction of fear learning involves to an extent a reversal of the flow of information in the mentioned structures and is used in the therapy of posttraumatic stress disorder and fear memories in general.


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