TY - JOUR A1 - Genheimer, Hannah A1 - Andreatta, Marta A1 - Asan, Esther A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Reinstatement of contextual conditioned anxiety in virtual reality and the effects of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in humans JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Since exposure therapy for anxiety disorders incorporates extinction of contextual anxiety, relapses may be due to reinstatement processes. Animal research demonstrated more stable extinction memory and less anxiety relapse due to vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). We report a valid human three-day context conditioning, extinction and return of anxiety protocol, which we used to examine effects of transcutaneous VNS (tVNS). Seventy-five healthy participants received electric stimuli (unconditioned stimuli, US) during acquisition (Day1) when guided through one virtual office (anxiety context, CTX+) but never in another (safety context, CTX−). During extinction (Day2), participants received tVNS, sham, or no stimulation and revisited both contexts without US delivery. On Day3, participants received three USs for reinstatement followed by a test phase. Successful acquisition, i.e. startle potentiation, lower valence, higher arousal, anxiety and contingency ratings in CTX+ versus CTX−, the disappearance of these effects during extinction, and successful reinstatement indicate validity of this paradigm. Interestingly, we found generalized reinstatement in startle responses and differential reinstatement in valence ratings. Altogether, our protocol serves as valid conditioning paradigm. Reinstatement effects indicate different anxiety networks underlying physiological versus verbal responses. However, tVNS did neither affect extinction nor reinstatement, which asks for validation and improvement of the stimulation protocol. KW - psychology KW - vagus nerve stimulation KW - contextual anxiety KW - fear conditioning KW - extinction Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-169892 VL - 7 IS - 17886 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wiemer, Julian A1 - Rauner, Milena M. A1 - Stegmann, Yannik A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Reappraising fear: is up-regulation more efficient than down-regulation? JF - Motivation and Emotion N2 - Catastrophizing thoughts may contribute to the development of anxiety, but functional emotion regulation may help to improve treatment. No study so far directly compared up- and down-regulation of fear by cognitive reappraisal. Here, healthy individuals took part in a cued fear experiment, in which multiple pictures of faces were paired twice with an unpleasant scream or presented as safety stimuli. Participants (N = 47) were asked (within-subjects) to down-regulate, to up-regulate and to maintain their natural emotional response. Valence and arousal ratings indicated successful up- and down-regulation of the emotional experience, while heart rate and pupil dilation increased during up-regulation, but showed no reduction in down-regulation. State and trait anxiety correlated with evaluations of safety but not threat stimuli, which supports the role of deficient safety learning in anxiety. Reappraisal did not modulate this effect. In conclusion, this study reveals evidence for up-regulation effects in fear, which might be even more efficient than down-regulation on a physiological level and highlights the importance of catastrophizing thoughts for the maintenance of fear and anxiety. KW - anxiety KW - fear conditioning KW - cognitive reappraisal KW - pupil diameter KW - heart rate Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-269187 SN - 1573-6644 VL - 45 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Guhn, Anne A1 - Dresler, Thomas A1 - Andreatta, Marta A1 - Müller, Laura D. A1 - Hahn, Tim A1 - Tupak, Sara V. A1 - Polak, Thomas A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Herrmann, Martin J. T1 - Medial prefrontal cortex stimulation modulates the processing of conditioned fear N2 - The extinction of conditioned fear depends on an efficient interplay between the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). In rats, high-frequency electrical mPFC stimulation has been shown to improve extinction by means of a reduction of amygdala activity. However, so far it is unclear whether stimulation of homologues regions in humans might have similar beneficial effects. Healthy volunteers received one session of either active or sham repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) covering the mPFC while undergoing a 2-day fear conditioning and extinction paradigm. Repetitive TMS was applied offline after fear acquisition in which one of two faces (CS+ but not CS−) was associated with an aversive scream (UCS). Immediate extinction learning (day 1) and extinction recall (day 2) were conducted without UCS delivery. Conditioned responses (CR) were assessed in a multimodal approach using fear-potentiated startle (FPS), skin conductance responses (SCR), functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and self-report scales. Consistent with the hypothesis of a modulated processing of conditioned fear after high-frequency rTMS, the active group showed a reduced CS+/CS− discrimination during extinction learning as evident in FPS as well as in SCR and arousal ratings. FPS responses to CS+ further showed a linear decrement throughout both extinction sessions. This study describes the first experimental approach of influencing conditioned fear by using rTMS and can thus be a basis for future studies investigating a complementation of mPFC stimulation to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). KW - fear conditioning KW - memory consolidation and extinction KW - learning KW - transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) KW - medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-111309 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schiele, Miriam A. A1 - Reinhard, Julia A1 - Reif, Andreas A1 - Domschke, Katharina A1 - Romanos, Marcel A1 - Deckert, Jürgen A1 - Pauli, Paul T1 - Developmental aspects of fear: Comparing the acquisition and generalization of conditioned fear in children and adults JF - Developmental Psychobiology N2 - Most research on human fear conditioning and its generalization has focused on adults whereas only little is known about these processes in children. Direct comparisons between child and adult populations are needed to determine developmental risk markers of fear and anxiety. We compared 267 children and 285 adults in a differential fear conditioning paradigm and generalization test. Skin conductance responses (SCR) and ratings of valence and arousal were obtained to indicate fear learning. Both groups displayed robust and similar differential conditioning on subjective and physiological levels. However, children showed heightened fear generalization compared to adults as indexed by higher arousal ratings and SCR to the generalization stimuli. Results indicate overgeneralization of conditioned fear as a developmental correlate of fear learning. The developmental change from a shallow to a steeper generalization gradient is likely related to the maturation of brain structures that modulate efficient discrimination between danger and (ambiguous) safety cues. KW - fear conditioning KW - fear generalization KW - development KW - skin conductance KW - maturation Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189488 VL - 58 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stegmann, Yannik A1 - Andreatta, Marta A1 - Pauli, Paul A1 - Wieser, Matthias J. T1 - Associative learning shapes visual discrimination in a web-based classical conditioning task JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Threat detection plays a vital role in adapting behavior to changing environments. A fundamental function to improve threat detection is learning to differentiate between stimuli predicting danger and safety. Accordingly, aversive learning should lead to enhanced sensory discrimination of danger and safety cues. However, studies investigating the psychophysics of visual and auditory perception after aversive learning show divergent findings, and both enhanced and impaired discrimination after aversive learning have been reported. Therefore, the aim of this web-based study is to examine the impact of aversive learning on a continuous measure of visual discrimination. To this end, 205 participants underwent a differential fear conditioning paradigm before and after completing a visual discrimination task using differently oriented grating stimuli. Participants saw either unpleasant or neutral pictures as unconditioned stimuli (US). Results demonstrated sharpened visual discrimination for the US-associated stimulus (CS+), but not for the unpaired conditioned stimuli (CS-). Importantly, this finding was irrespective of the US's valence. These findings suggest that associative learning results in increased stimulus salience, which facilitates perceptual discrimination in order to prioritize attentional deployment. KW - classical conditioning KW - fear conditioning KW - psychology KW - sensory processing KW - visual system Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260480 VL - 11 IS - 1 ER -