Augmentation of Extinction and Inhibitory Learning in Anxiety and Trauma-Related Disorders
Year: 2019
Type: review
Abstract: Although the fear response is an adaptive response to threatening situations, a number of psychiatric disorders feature prominent fear-related symptoms caused, in part, by failures of extinction and inhibitory learning. The translational nature of fear conditioning paradigms has enabled us to develop a nuanced understanding of extinction and inhibitory learning based on the molecular substrates to systems neural circuitry and psychological mechanisms. This knowledge has facilitated the development of novel interventions that may augment extinction and inhibitory learning. These interventions include nonpharmacological techniques, such as behavioral methods to implement during psychotherapy, as well as device-based stimulation techniques that enhance or reduce activity in different regions of the brain. There is also emerging support for a number of psychopharmacological interventions that may augment extinction and inhibitory learning specifically if administered in conjunction with exposure-based psychotherapy. This growing body of research may offer promising novel techniques to address debilitating transdiagnostic fear-related symptoms.
Institutions: Harvard University, McLean Hospital
Language: English
Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Neurobiology of Traumatic Dissociation in a Transdiagnostic Study of Women with Childhood Maltreatment, Genetic and estrogen-dependent regulation of the human PAC1R receptor and PTSD, Characterizing the Neurobiology of Pathological Dissociation: Mechanisms of Face Perception and Self Referential Processing, Neurobiology of Self-Referential Processing in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Dysfunction and Recovery, Cell Type Specific Genomic and Functional Dissection of Fear-Off Amygdala Pathways
OpenAlex ID: W2911560859