Novel paradigm attenuates traumatic memories and prevents return of fear

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Exaggerated or persistent fear is a common occurrence in psychiatric disorders. Although much progress has been made in uncovering the neural basis of fear learning through studies of Pavlovian conditioning, little is known about how to reduce or eliminate traumatic memories in pathological cases, which is of great clinical concern. Associative emotional memories can be formed when an initially neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS;e.g., a tone) acquires the ability to elicit fear responses after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US;e.g., a shock). Two paradigms (blockade of reconsolidation and extinction) have been used in the laboratory setting to reduce acquired fear (Nader et al., 2000;REF, YEAR);however, the clinical efficacy of these techniques has been limited: reconsolidation blockade requires potentially toxic drugs, while extinction is not typically permanent. My preliminary findings indicated that we have devised a novel behavioral paradigm that attenuates and prevents the return of fear memories. Our results indicate that subtle modifications to a commonly employed clinical treatment (exposure therapy) could greatly improve outcome, and reduce the potential for relapse in individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or specific phobias. In the proposed studies, I propose to examine the neural mechanisms that underlie this persistent attenuation of fear, in order to disambiguate how our novel paradigm distinguishes itself from standard extinction mechanisms. We will perform these experiments in rat and human studies in parallel, and then test whether this form of therapy can be used to treat individuals that suffer from specific phobias. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Exaggerated or persistent fear is a common occurrence in psychiatric disorders. Two paradigms (blockade of reconsolidation and extinction) have been used in the laboratory setting to reduce acquired fear;however, the clinical efficacy of these techniques has been limited. Here, we present a novel behavioral paradigm that attenuates and prevents the return of fear memories. Our findings indicate that subtle modifications to a commonly employed clinical treatment (exposure therapy) could greatly improve outcome, and reduce the potential for relapse in individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or specific phobias.