Facilitated acquisition of standard but not long delay classical eyeblink conditioning in behaviorally inhibited adolescents

Individual differences in resting-state functional connectivity with the executive network: support for a cerebellar role in anxiety vulnerability

“…Based on previous research indicating individual differences in cerebellar-mediated learning tasks (Caulfield et al 2013(Caulfield et al , 2015, we chose to concentrate on cerebellar contributions to known cortical networks. First, we examined cerebellar contributions to established sensorimotor networks by examining regions of correlating activity with cortical motor seeds.…”

“…However, individual differences in intrinsic connectivity may be a pre-existing risk factor for the development of an anxiety disorder. For example, a stress-diathesis approach suggests that anxiety is due to the interaction of risk factors such as sex, genetics, personality (Mineka and Zinbarg 2006), brain structure (Gilbertson et al 2002) and learning (Caulfield et al 2013;Holloway et al 2013;Caulfield et al 2015). It is likely that connectivity may also play an essential role in mediating risk for developing clinical anxiety.…”

“…As such, recent research studies have reported increased resting-state connectivity of the amygdala and insula in Veterans with PTSD, implicating the salience network (Sripada et al 2012). However, given previous research in cerebellarmediated eyeblink conditioning (Caulfield et al 2013(Caulfield et al , 2015, avoidance learning (Sheynin et al 2013), and taskbased fMRI (Blackford et al 2009), we hypothesized that regions in the cerebellum will significantly correlate with executive network resting-state fluctuations, with inhibited individuals demonstrating greater cerebellar connectivity with the executive network.…”

“…It remains unclear why those with behaviorally inhibited temperament demonstrate individual differences in eyeblink conditioning (Caulfield et al 2013;Caulfield et al 2015), as well as enhanced avoidance learning (Sheynin et al 2013). Reciprocal connectivity between the cerebellum and cortical regions places it in a position to modulate higher cognitive processes via connections with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).…”

“…Individual differences in learning performance were found on a cerebellar-mediated associative learning task (Caulfield et al 2013(Caulfield et al , 2015. In this task, participants were given a battery of measures related to risk for anxiety including the Adult Measure of Behavioral Inhibition (AMBI; Gladstone and Parker 2005), a measure of behavioral inhibition that has been linked to greater risk for developing clinical anxiety (Biederman et al 1990;Hirshfeld et al 1992;Biederman et al 2001;Schwartz et al 2012), and then underwent eyeblink classical conditioning.…”