ReviewBrain Mechanisms of Fear Extinction: Historical Perspectives on the Contribution of Prefrontal Cortex
Section snippets
What Is Extinction?
The term extinction is usually used to refer to the weakening of a response to a stimulus that acquired aversive properties through learning. In addition to studying the conditioning and extinction of salivation in response to a CS that predicts food, Pavlov also studied defensive CRs, which were responses elicited by a CS paired with aversive stimulation (Pavlov 1927). In contemporary parlance, defensive conditioning is called fear conditioning. After pairing of the CS and US, usually a tone
How Does the Brain Mediate Extinction?
Given the central role the amygdala plays in fear learning (Davis 1992, Fendt and Fanselow 1999, LeDoux 2000, Paré et al 2004, Sah et al 2003), it is not surprising that contemporary research considers the amygdala to be a key brain region related to extinction, either as a site of critical plasticity or as a site of expression. Indeed, several recent electrophysiological (Hobin et al 2003, Quirk et al 1995, Quirk et al 1997, Repa et al 2001, Rogan et al 1997), molecular (Davis 2002, Lin et al
Clinical Implications
Understanding the neural mechanisms of Pavlovian fear extinction is likely to have important implications for the treatment of humans with fear and anxiety disorders. Cognitive–behavior therapy (CBT) in humans is based on extinction and typically involves exposure to fear-eliciting cues in a safe setting (Barlow 2002, Foa and Jaycox 1999, Wolpe 1968). Cognitive–behavior therapy is widely used today and remains one of the most effective therapies for pathological anxiety, such as phobias, panic,
Future Considerations
The brain mechanisms of emotional regulation have been a topic of interest for centuries, and for good reason. Emotional regulation is critical for adapting to change and for the maintenance of stable social groups. Pavlovian fear extinction is a particularly important, and relatively simple, form of emotional regulation.
Future research will undoubtedly seek to understand how the PFC, amygdala, and hippocampus interact to fully encode the extinction memory and coordinate its expression. These
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