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Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) mediates the inhibition of defensive responses upon encounters of cues, that had lost their attribute as a threat signal via previous extinction learning. Here, we investigated whether such fear extinction recall can be facilitated by anodal transcranial di...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9489865/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36127327 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-022-02174-8 |
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author | Szeska, Christoph Pünjer, Hannah Riemann, Steffen Meinzer, Marcus Hamm, Alfons O. |
author_facet | Szeska, Christoph Pünjer, Hannah Riemann, Steffen Meinzer, Marcus Hamm, Alfons O. |
author_sort | Szeska, Christoph |
collection | PubMed |
description | The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) mediates the inhibition of defensive responses upon encounters of cues, that had lost their attribute as a threat signal via previous extinction learning. Here, we investigated whether such fear extinction recall can be facilitated by anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Extinction recall was tested twenty-four hours after previously acquired fear was extinguished. Either anodal tDCS or sham stimulation targeting the vmPFC was applied during this test. After stimulation ceased, we examined return of fear after subjects had been re-exposed to aversive events. Fear was assessed by reports of threat expectancy and modulations of autonomic (skin conductance, heart rate) and protective reflex (startle potentiation) measures, the latter of which are mediated by subcortical defense circuits. While tDCS did not affect initial extinction recall, it abolished the return of startle potentiation and autonomic components of the fear response. Results suggest hierarchical multi-level vmPFC functions in human fear inhibition and indicate, that its stimulation might immunize against relapses into pathological subcortically mediated defensive activation. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9489865 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94898652022-09-22 Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses Szeska, Christoph Pünjer, Hannah Riemann, Steffen Meinzer, Marcus Hamm, Alfons O. Transl Psychiatry Article The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) mediates the inhibition of defensive responses upon encounters of cues, that had lost their attribute as a threat signal via previous extinction learning. Here, we investigated whether such fear extinction recall can be facilitated by anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Extinction recall was tested twenty-four hours after previously acquired fear was extinguished. Either anodal tDCS or sham stimulation targeting the vmPFC was applied during this test. After stimulation ceased, we examined return of fear after subjects had been re-exposed to aversive events. Fear was assessed by reports of threat expectancy and modulations of autonomic (skin conductance, heart rate) and protective reflex (startle potentiation) measures, the latter of which are mediated by subcortical defense circuits. While tDCS did not affect initial extinction recall, it abolished the return of startle potentiation and autonomic components of the fear response. Results suggest hierarchical multi-level vmPFC functions in human fear inhibition and indicate, that its stimulation might immunize against relapses into pathological subcortically mediated defensive activation. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-09-20 /pmc/articles/PMC9489865/ /pubmed/36127327 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-022-02174-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Szeska, Christoph Pünjer, Hannah Riemann, Steffen Meinzer, Marcus Hamm, Alfons O. Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses |
title | Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses |
title_full | Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses |
title_fullStr | Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses |
title_full_unstemmed | Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses |
title_short | Stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses |
title_sort | stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex blocks the return of subcortically mediated fear responses |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9489865/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36127327 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41398-022-02174-8 |
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