Acquisition of the classically conditioned eyeblink response in humans over the life span.

Solomon, Paul R.; Pomerleau, Dean; Bennett, Laurie; James, Julia M.; Morse, David L.

doi:10.1037/0882-7974.4.1.34

Cited by 116 publications

(143 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Several studies have shown impaired conditioning with increasing age (Bellebaum & Daum, 2004;Knuttinen, Power, Preston, & Disterhoft, 2001;LaBar, Cook, Torpey, & Welsh-Bohmer, 2004;Solomon, Pomerleau, Bennett, James, & Morse, 1989;Woodruff-Pak & Thompson, 1988). In the present study, the age (61 years) of one member of the trace group fell in a range that has previously shown impairment relative to younger subjects (Bellebaum & Daum, 2004;LaBar et al, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

The role of awareness in delay and trace fear conditioning in humans

Knight

Nguyen

Bandettini

2006

Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience

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Expression of conditional fear without awareness has been previously demonstrated during delay conditioning, a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (UCS) overlap. However, less is known about the role of awareness in trace fear conditioning, where an interval of time separates the CS and UCS. The present study assessed skin conductance response (SCR) and UCS expectancy during delay and trace conditioning. UCS predictability was varied on a trial-bytrial basis by presenting perithreshold auditory CSs. Differential UCS expectancies were demonstrated only on perceived delay and trace trials. Learning-related SCRs were observed during both perceived and unperceived delay CSs. In contrast, differential SCRs were demonstrated only for perceived trace CSs. These data suggest that awareness is necessary for conditional responding during trace, but not delay, fear conditioning.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

The role of awareness in delay and trace fear conditioning in humans

Knight

Nguyen

Bandettini

2006

Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience

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“…Aging appears to progress at different rates in different individuals, producing a wide range of changes in neural systems, including those supporting learning and memory. Human subjects have demonstrable age-dependent heterogeneity in their ability to successfully acquire a conditioned eyeblink task (43). Increased variance in acquisition rates in rabbit eyeblink conditioning has also been reported, using a relatively simpler behavioral criterion (57).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Attention has been called to the fact that insufficient resources are currently available for studying brain aging (33,37), although the incidence of a variety of age-associated behavioral impairments in humans has climbed steadily as modern medicine has prolonged the average life-span in advanced countries (4,9,43,52). Two mammalian species have had widest use in behavioral and biological studies of aging, the rat (11)(12)(13)25,54) and the rabbit (41,46,52), although considerable work has been carried out with other species as well (18,20,36).…”

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confidence: 99%

Trace eyeblink conditioning in rabbits demonstrates heterogeneity of learning ability both between and within age groups

Thompson

Moyer

Disterhoft

1996

Neurobiology of Aging

106

101

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conditioning in rabbits demonstrates heterogeneity of learning ability both between and within age groups. NEUROBIOL AGING 17(4) 619-629, 1996.-Rabbits 2 to 41 months of age were conditioned in the 500 ms trace eyeblink paradigm to cross-sectionally define the age of onset and the severity of age-associated impairments in acquisition of this relatively difficult hippocampally dependent task. Using a strict behavioral criterion of 80% conditioned responses (CRs), age-associated learning impairments were significant by 24 months of age. Among rabbits that successfully reached this criterion, impairments in acquisition plateaued at 30 months of age. However, the proportion of severely impaired rabbits (that failed to reach the 80% criterion) continued to increase age dependently. Using an easier criterion of 8 out of 10 CRs, behavioral impairments were not detected until 30 months of age, and cases of severe impairment (failure to reach criterion) were rare. Additional controls demonstrated that the deficits observed were not attributable to nonassociative changes that might have artifactually skewed the data. Even severely impaired 36-month-old rabbits were able to reach a criterion of 80% CRs when switched from a trace to a delay conditioning task that is not hippocampally dependent. The results are discussed in terms of operationally defining and predicting behavioral effects of aging, hypothetical neural mechanisms, and efficient experimental design.

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“…terhoft, 2001; Solomon, Pomerleau, Bennett, James, & Morse, 1989;Solyom & Barik, 1965;Woodruff-Pak & Finkbiner, 1995;. These effects are dissociable from age-associated changes in the production of voluntary eyeblinks and baseline startle responses.…”

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confidence: 85%

Impact of Healthy Aging on Awareness and Fear Conditioning.

LaBar

Cook

Torpey

et al. 2004

Behavioral Neuroscience

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Fear conditioning has provided a useful model system for studying associative emotional learning, but the impact of healthy aging has gone relatively unexplored. The present study investigated fear conditioning across the adult life span in humans. A delay discrimination task was employed using visual conditioned stimuli and an auditory unconditioned stimulus. Awareness of the reinforcement contingencies was assessed in a postexperimental interview. Compared with young adult participants, middle-aged and older adults displayed reductions in unconditioned responding, discriminant conditioning, and contingency awareness. When awareness and overall arousability were taken into consideration, there were no residual effects of aging on conditioning. These results highlight the importance of considering the influence of declarative knowledge when interpreting age-associated changes in discriminative conditioned learning.

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Acquisition of the classically conditioned eyeblink response in humans over the life span.

Cited by 116 publications

References 35 publications

The role of awareness in delay and trace fear conditioning in humans

The role of awareness in delay and trace fear conditioning in humans

Trace eyeblink conditioning in rabbits demonstrates heterogeneity of learning ability both between and within age groups

Impact of Healthy Aging on Awareness and Fear Conditioning.

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