Human blink startle during aversive and nonaversive Pavlovian conditioning.

Lipp, Ottmar V.; Sheridan, Judith; Siddle, David A.T.

doi:10.1037/0097-7403.20.4.380

Cited by 60 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Ö hman et al, 2000). Accordingly, increased SCRs are observed when a CS is associated with a significant but nonaversive event (Lipp et al, 1994;Hamm and Vaitl, 1996). Finally, substantial evidence indicates that conditioned SCR discrimination depends on the acquisition of declarative knowledge about the stimulus contingencies (Lovibond and Shanks, 2002), supporting the notion that SCR conditioning indexes a rather cognitive level of learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Fear Conditioning following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy: Dissociation of Conditioned Startle Potentiation and Autonomic Learning

Weike¹,

Hamm²,

Schupp³

et al. 2005

J. Neurosci.

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The present study investigated fear-potentiated startle and autonomic learning in brain-lesioned patients in a classical fear-conditioning paradigm. Startle blink and skin conductance responses of 30 patients who underwent unilateral temporal lobectomy because of drugresistant epilepsy were compared with those of 32 healthy controls. As expected, temporal lobectomy patients showed a general impairment in fear conditioning relative to controls. This impairment did not differ with respect to the affected hemisphere. Moreover, while fear-conditioned startle potentiation in healthy controls was independent of contingency awareness, skin conductance discrimination was only observed for those participants who correctly recognized the stimulus contingencies. Patients who acquired a declarative memory of the contingencies also showed intact skin conductance discrimination but failed to exhibit fear-potentiated startle. The present findings support a two-levels-of-learning account of human fear conditioning and also demonstrate that the amygdala is crucially involved in fear learning.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 63%

Fear Conditioning following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy: Dissociation of Conditioned Startle Potentiation and Autonomic Learning

Weike¹,

Hamm²,

Schupp³

et al. 2005

J. Neurosci.

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“…Hence, potentiation of the defensive startle reflex is a reliable and specific index of aversive conditioning 34 . In contrast, SCR conditioning can occur irrespective of the valence of the US 47,48 . Given that affective valence of the US does not modify SCR, electrodermal conditioning is a non-specific measure of anticipatory arousal.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In human fear conditioning research, multiple indices of conditioned responding (e.g., US-expectancy, SCR, startle response, pupil dilation, neural activity) are usually obtained for reasons of crossvalidation 46 . However, there is now convincing evidence that these different response levels do not necessarily act in concert and may even dissociate from each other 3,[27][28][29][30][31][32]34,37,47 . Note that the startle response is an automatic defensive reflex, which is potentiated in response to a CS that is associated with a US of negative valence and can generally not be observed with USs of neutral or positive valence 47,48 (e.g., vibrotactile stimulation or reaction time task).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disrupting Reconsolidation of Fear Memory in Humans by a Noradrenergic β-Blocker

Kindt

Soeter

Sevenster

2014

JoVE

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The basic design used in our human fear-conditioning studies on disrupting reconsolidation includes testing over different phases across three consecutive days. On day 1 -the fear acquisition phase, healthy participants are exposed to a series of picture presentations. One picture stimulus (CS1+) is repeatedly paired with an aversive electric stimulus (US), resulting in the acquisition of a fear association, whereas another picture stimulus (CS2-) is never followed by an US. On day 2 -the memory reactivation phase, the participants are re-exposed to the conditioned stimulus without the US (CS1-), which typically triggers a conditioned fear response. After the memory reactivation we administer an oral dose of 40 mg of propranolol HCl, a β-adrenergic receptor antagonist that indirectly targets the protein synthesis required for reconsolidation by inhibiting the noradrenaline-stimulated CREB phosphorylation. On day 3 -the test phase, the participants are again exposed to the unreinforced conditioned stimuli (CS1-and CS2-) in order to measure the fear-reducing effect of the manipulation. This retention test is followed by an extinction procedure and the presentation of situational triggers to test for the return of fear. Potentiation of the eye blink startle reflex is measured as an index for conditioned fear responding. Declarative knowledge of the fear association is measured through online US expectancy ratings during each CS presentation. In contrast to extinction learning, disrupting reconsolidation targets the original fear memory thereby preventing the return of fear. Although the clinical applications are still in their infancy, disrupting reconsolidation of fear memory seems to be a promising new technique with the prospect to persistently dampen the expression of fear memory in patients suffering from anxiety disorders and other psychiatric disorders.

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“…An additional difference between self-reported and psychophysiological results was that comparison subjects showed evidence of learning by the former but not latter measure of conditioning. Because effects of conditioned startle-potentiation have been shown to require a more highly aversive unconditioned stimulus than other measures of conditioning (33,34), it is plausible that the US neg was experienced aversively enough by comparison subjects to elicit conditioning (as measured via self-report) but was insufficiently aversive to generate conditioned startle-potentiation.…”

Section: Startle Emg and Self-reported Measures Of Conditioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elevated Fear Conditioning to Socially Relevant Unconditioned Stimuli in Social Anxiety Disorder

Lissek¹,

Levenson

Biggs

et al. 2008

AJP

135

125

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Objective-Though conditioned fear has long been acknowledged as an important etiologic mechanism in social anxiety disorder, past psychophysiological experiments have found no differences in general conditionability among social anxiety patients using generally aversive but socially nonspecific unconditioned stimuli (e.g., unpleasant odors and painful pressure). The authors applied a novel fear conditioning paradigm consisting of socially relevant unconditioned stimuli of critical facial expressions and verbal feedback. This study represents the first effort to assess the conditioning correlates of social anxiety disorder within an ecologically enhanced paradigm.Method-Subjects with social anxiety disorder and age-and gender-matched healthy comparison subjects underwent differential classical conditioning. Conditioned stimuli included images of three neutral facial expressions, each of which was paired with one of three audiovisual unconditioned stimuli: negative insults with critical faces (US neg ), positive compliments with happy faces (US pos ), or neutral comments with neutral faces (US neu ). The conditioned response was measured as the fear-potentiation of the startle-blink reflex elicited during presentation of the conditioned stimuli.Results-Only social anxiety subjects demonstrated fear conditioning in response to facial expressions, as the startle-blink reflex was potentiated by the CS neg versus both CS neu and CS pos among those with the disorder, while healthy comparison subjects displayed no evidence of conditioned startle-potentiation. Such group differences in conditioning were independent of levels of anxiety to the unconditioned stimulus, implicating associative processes rather than increased unconditioned stimulus reactivity as the active mechanism underlying enhanced conditioned startlepotentiation among social anxiety subjects.Conclusions-Results support a conditioning contribution to social anxiety disorder and underscore the importance of disorder-relevant unconditioned stimuli when studying the conditioning correlates of pathologic anxiety.Fear conditioning, the associative learning process by which a neutral conditioned stimulus acquires the capacity to elicit fear following its repeated pairing with an aversive unconditioned stimulus, features prominently in etiologic accounts of social anxiety disorder (1-3). In this context, the unconditioned stimulus consists of a time-limited humiliating experience and the conditioned stimuli are those stimuli associatively linked to the unconditioned stimulus (i.e., Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Lissek, NIMH, NIH, 15K North Dr., Rm. 200, Bethesda, MD 20892-2670; lisseks@mail.nih.gov (e-mail people, places, and things) (1). Conditioning is thought to contribute to the onset and course of social anxiety disorder by conferring anxiogenic valence to conditioned stimuli that are then capable of sustaining social anxiety beyond the presence of the time-limited unconditioned stimulus.Theories regarding conditioning and soci...

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Human blink startle during aversive and nonaversive Pavlovian conditioning.

Cited by 60 publications

References 24 publications

Fear Conditioning following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy: Dissociation of Conditioned Startle Potentiation and Autonomic Learning

Fear Conditioning following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy: Dissociation of Conditioned Startle Potentiation and Autonomic Learning

Disrupting Reconsolidation of Fear Memory in Humans by a Noradrenergic β-Blocker

Elevated Fear Conditioning to Socially Relevant Unconditioned Stimuli in Social Anxiety Disorder

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Human blink startle during aversive and nonaversive Pavlovian conditioning.

Cited by 60 publications

References 24 publications

Fear Conditioning following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy: Dissociation of Conditioned Startle Potentiation and Autonomic Learning

Fear Conditioning following Unilateral Temporal Lobectomy: Dissociation of Conditioned Startle Potentiation and Autonomic Learning

Disrupting Reconsolidation of Fear Memory in Humans by a Noradrenergic &#946;-Blocker

Elevated Fear Conditioning to Socially Relevant Unconditioned Stimuli in Social Anxiety Disorder

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Disrupting Reconsolidation of Fear Memory in Humans by a Noradrenergic β-Blocker