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Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression?

Recent studies have begun to carve out a specific role for the rostral part of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and adjacent dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in fear/anxiety. Within a novel general framework of dorsal mPFC/ACC areas subserving the appraisal of threat and concomitan...

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Autores principales: Maier, Simon, Szalkowski, Anna, Kamphausen, Susanne, Perlov, Evgeniy, Feige, Bernd, Blechert, Jens, Philipsen, Alexandra, van Elst, Ludger Tebartz, Kalisch, Raffael, Tüscher, Oliver
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3506550/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23189183
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050120
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author Maier, Simon
Szalkowski, Anna
Kamphausen, Susanne
Perlov, Evgeniy
Feige, Bernd
Blechert, Jens
Philipsen, Alexandra
van Elst, Ludger Tebartz
Kalisch, Raffael
Tüscher, Oliver
author_facet Maier, Simon
Szalkowski, Anna
Kamphausen, Susanne
Perlov, Evgeniy
Feige, Bernd
Blechert, Jens
Philipsen, Alexandra
van Elst, Ludger Tebartz
Kalisch, Raffael
Tüscher, Oliver
author_sort Maier, Simon
collection PubMed
description Recent studies have begun to carve out a specific role for the rostral part of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and adjacent dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in fear/anxiety. Within a novel general framework of dorsal mPFC/ACC areas subserving the appraisal of threat and concomitant expression of fear responses and ventral mPFC/ACC areas subserving fear regulation, the rostral dmPFC/dACC has been proposed to specifically mediate the conscious, negative appraisal of threat situations including, as an extreme variant, catastrophizing. An alternative explanation that has not been conclusively ruled out yet is that the area is involved in fear learning. We tested two different fear expression paradigms in separate fMRI studies (study 1: instructed fear, study 2: testing of Pavlovian conditioned fear) with independent groups of healthy adult subjects. In both paradigms the absence of reinforcement precluded conditioning. We demonstrate significant BOLD activation of an identical rostral dmPFC/dACC area. In the Pavlovian paradigm (study 2), the area only activated robustly once prior conditioning had finished. Thus, our data argue against a role of the area in fear learning. We further replicate a repeated observation of a dissociation between peripheral-physiological fear responding and rostral dmPFC/dACC activation, strongly suggesting the area does not directly generate fear responses but rather contributes to appraisal processes. Although we succeeded in preventing extinction of conditioned responding in either paradigm, the data do not allow us to definitively exclude an involvement of the area in fear extinction learning. We discuss the broader implications of this finding for our understanding of mPFC/ACC function in fear and in negative emotion more generally.
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spelling pubmed-35065502012-11-27 Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression? Maier, Simon Szalkowski, Anna Kamphausen, Susanne Perlov, Evgeniy Feige, Bernd Blechert, Jens Philipsen, Alexandra van Elst, Ludger Tebartz Kalisch, Raffael Tüscher, Oliver PLoS One Research Article Recent studies have begun to carve out a specific role for the rostral part of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and adjacent dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in fear/anxiety. Within a novel general framework of dorsal mPFC/ACC areas subserving the appraisal of threat and concomitant expression of fear responses and ventral mPFC/ACC areas subserving fear regulation, the rostral dmPFC/dACC has been proposed to specifically mediate the conscious, negative appraisal of threat situations including, as an extreme variant, catastrophizing. An alternative explanation that has not been conclusively ruled out yet is that the area is involved in fear learning. We tested two different fear expression paradigms in separate fMRI studies (study 1: instructed fear, study 2: testing of Pavlovian conditioned fear) with independent groups of healthy adult subjects. In both paradigms the absence of reinforcement precluded conditioning. We demonstrate significant BOLD activation of an identical rostral dmPFC/dACC area. In the Pavlovian paradigm (study 2), the area only activated robustly once prior conditioning had finished. Thus, our data argue against a role of the area in fear learning. We further replicate a repeated observation of a dissociation between peripheral-physiological fear responding and rostral dmPFC/dACC activation, strongly suggesting the area does not directly generate fear responses but rather contributes to appraisal processes. Although we succeeded in preventing extinction of conditioned responding in either paradigm, the data do not allow us to definitively exclude an involvement of the area in fear extinction learning. We discuss the broader implications of this finding for our understanding of mPFC/ACC function in fear and in negative emotion more generally. Public Library of Science 2012-11-26 /pmc/articles/PMC3506550/ /pubmed/23189183 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050120 Text en © 2012 Maier et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Maier, Simon
Szalkowski, Anna
Kamphausen, Susanne
Perlov, Evgeniy
Feige, Bernd
Blechert, Jens
Philipsen, Alexandra
van Elst, Ludger Tebartz
Kalisch, Raffael
Tüscher, Oliver
Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression?
title Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression?
title_full Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression?
title_fullStr Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression?
title_full_unstemmed Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression?
title_short Clarifying the Role of the Rostral dmPFC/dACC in Fear/Anxiety: Learning, Appraisal or Expression?
title_sort clarifying the role of the rostral dmpfc/dacc in fear/anxiety: learning, appraisal or expression?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3506550/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23189183
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050120
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