Behavioral Measurement of Conditioned Fear11This chapter was completed in February, 1969, while the authors were at Syracuse University.

McAllister, Wallace R.; McAllister, Dorothy E.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-137950-6.50007-9

Cited by 139 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 149 publications

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“…Since the introduction of the paradigm, freezing during a conditioned tone presentation has overwhelmingly been the singular measure of fear in cued fear conditioning and extinction experiments. Freezing is traditionally defined as “the complete cessation of movement with the exception of that required for respiration,” ( McAllister et al., 1971 ) and the amount of time spent freezing is considered to be a measure of the degree to which the animal has learned the tone-shock association ( Paré et al., 2004 ). This practice necessitates that all movement is then treated equally as non-fearful behavior.…”

Section: Learned Fear Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in PTSD resilience and susceptibility: Challenges for animal models of fear learning

Shansky

2015

Neurobiology of Stress

147

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PTSD occurs in only a small fraction of trauma-exposed individuals, but risk is twice as high in women as in men. The neurobiological basis for this discrepancy is not known, but the identification of biological determinants of resilience and susceptibility in each sex could lead to more targeted preventions and treatments. Animal models are a useful tool for dissecting the circuits and mechanisms that underlie the brain’s response to stress, but the vast majority of this work has been developed and conducted in males. The limited work that does incorporate female animals is often inconsistent across labs and does not broadly reflect human populations in terms of female susceptibility to PTSD-like behaviors. In this review, we suggest that interpreting male vs. female comparisons in these models be approached carefully, since common behavioral outcome measures may in fact reflect distinct neural processes. Moreover, since the factors that determine resilience and susceptibility are likely at least in part distinct in men and women, models that take a within-sex approach to response variability may be more useful in identifying critical mechanisms for manipulation.

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Section: Learned Fear Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in PTSD resilience and susceptibility: Challenges for animal models of fear learning

Shansky

2015

Neurobiology of Stress

147

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“…Escape from fear (EFF) is an instrumental learning paradigm whereby animals acquire an escape response (R e ) as a result of its temporal pairing with termination of a Pavlovian fear-eliciting conditioned stimulus (CS; W. R. McAllister & McAllister, 1971; Miller, 1941, 1948; Mowrer & Lamoreaux, 1946).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Escape from fear: A detailed behavioral analysis of two atypical responses reinforced by CS termination.

Cain

LeDoux²

2007

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

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Escape from fear (EFF) is a controversial paradigm according to which animals learn to actively escape a fear-eliciting conditioned stimulus (CS) if the escape response (R-sub(e)) is paired with CS termination. Some theories posit that EFF learning is responsible for instrumental avoidance conditioning. However, EFF learning has typically been weaker than avoidance learning and difficult to reproduce. The authors examined EFF learning and memory with 2 atypical R-sub(e)s: rearing and nose-poking. The data suggest that rearing, but not nose-poking, can be learned as an instrumental EFF response. Further, EFF memory was response specific, aversively motivated, and controlled by the CS. Successful EFF learning also resulted in better long-term elimination of a passive fear reaction (freezing). Factors important for EFF experiments and theoretical considerations are discussed.

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“…However, most avoidance conditioning studies could not determine which process is affected by antipsychotic drugs: the Pavlovian fear conditioning process or the instrumental conditioning because in avoidance conditioning, both the Pavlovian conditioning of fear and the learning of the instrumental response occur concurrently, and any drug effect could be attributed to either one of them or both. In contrast, EFF provides an uncontaminated index of fear as it separates the conditioning process of fear from the measurement of fear (McAllister and McAllister 1971). Therefore, it has an advantage over an avoidance conditioning paradigm in isolating the drug effect on specific psychological processes by administering a drug at different stages of EFF.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Contemporary studies on the active fear responses and related neurobiology are scarce. One of the paradigms suitable for this endeavor is the escape from fear (EFF) (McAllister and McAllister 1971). In EFF, animals are first trained in a Pavlovian fear conditioning task (CS paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus, US, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An automatic recording system for the study of escape from fear in rats

Li¹,

2013

Behavioural Processes

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Escape from fear (EFF) is an active response to a conditioned stimulus (CS) previously paired with an unconditioned fearful stimulus (US), which typically leads to the termination of the CS. In this paradigm, animals acquire two distinct associations: S-S [CS-US] and R-O [response-outcome] through Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning, respectively. The present study describes a computer controlled automatic recording system that captures the development of EFF and allows the determination of the respective roles of S-S and R-O associations in this process. We validated this system by showing that only rats subjected to a simultaneous CS-US conditioning (i.e., CS and US occur together at the beginning of each trial) acquired EFF, not those subjected to an unpaired CS-US conditioning. Paired rats had a progressively increased number of EFF and significantly shorter escape latencies than unpaired rats across the 5-trial blocks on the test day. However, during the conditioning phase, the unpaired rats emitted more 22 kHz ultrasonic vocalizations, a validated measure of conditioned reactive fear responses. Our results demonstrate that the acquisition of EFF is contingent upon pairing of the CS with the US, not simply the consequence of a high level of generalized fear. Because this commercially available system is capable of examining both conditioned active and reactive fear responses in a single setup, it could be used to determine the relative roles of S-S and R-O associations in EFF, the neurobiology of conditioned active fear response and neuropharmacology of psychotherapeutic drugs.

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Behavioral Measurement of Conditioned Fear11This chapter was completed in February, 1969, while the authors were at Syracuse University.

Cited by 139 publications

References 149 publications

Sex differences in PTSD resilience and susceptibility: Challenges for animal models of fear learning

Sex differences in PTSD resilience and susceptibility: Challenges for animal models of fear learning

Escape from fear: A detailed behavioral analysis of two atypical responses reinforced by CS termination.

An automatic recording system for the study of escape from fear in rats

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