What is fear memory extinction?
The ability to extinguish fear memories when threats are no longer present is critical for adaptive behavior. Fear extinction represents a new learning process that eventually leads to the formation of extinction memories.
What is extinction recall?
Extinction learning refers to the gradual, within-session decrements of conditioned fear responses, whereas extinction recall refers to the retrieval and expression of the learned extinction memory after a delay (25).
What is human fear extinction?
Fear extinction is defined as a decline in conditioned fear responses (CRs) following nonreinforced exposure to a feared conditioned stimulus (CS). However, there also is evidence to suggest that extinction is an “unlearning” process corresponding to depotentiation of potentiated synapses within the amygdala.
What is extinction of fear?
Fear extinction is defined as a lessening of conditioned fear responses following extinction training, during which subjects are exposed to repetitive presentations of conditioned stimuli (CS) alone (Pavlov, 1927; Bouton, 1988; Myers and Davis, 2007; Nader et al., 2013).
What is extinction training?
Once fear is acquired, it can be diminished using extinction training, whereby the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the aversive outcome until fear is no longer expressed3. Fear can spontaneously recover with the passage of time.
What are examples of extinction?
For example, imagine that you taught your dog to shake hands. Over time, the trick became less interesting. You stop rewarding the behavior and eventually stop asking your dog to shake. Eventually, the response becomes extinct, and your dog no longer displays the behavior.
What is learned in extinction?
Extinction learning refers to the gradual decrease in response to a conditioned stimulus that occurs when the stimulus is presented without reinforcement. During extinction, a new association with the stimulus is learned that inhibits the expression of the original fear memory.
What happens in the brain during fear conditioning?
Fear conditioning is thought to depend upon an area of the brain called the amygdala. Additionally, inhibition of neurons in the amygdala disrupts fear acquisition, while stimulation of those neurons can drive fear-related behaviors, such as freezing behavior in rodents.