Aerobic exercise and consolidation of fear extinction learning among women with posttraumatic stress disorder

Crombie, Kevin M.; Sartin-Tarm, Anneliis; Sellnow, Kyrie; Ahrenholtz, Rachel; Lee, Sierra; Matalamaki, Megan; Adams, Tom G.; Cisler, Josh M.

doi:10.1016/j.brat.2021.103867

Cited by 30 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Consistent with previous investigations ( Cisler et al, 2020 , Haaker et al, 2013 , Raij et al, 2018 ), participants whose SCR data showed excessive artifact or flat responding were removed from analyses (n = 6 from run 1, n = 10 from run 2). This percentage of data loss (6.5–10.9%) is consistent with prior fear extinction studies using SCR ( Cisler et al, 2020 , Crombie et al, 2021a , Garfinkel et al, 2014 , Haaker et al, 2013 , Raij et al, 2018 ).…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…For example, recent modeling work suggest that SCR measures a mixture of uncertainty and threat value of the stimulus, whereas pupil dilation measures threat value alone ( Tzovara et al, 2018 ). As such, convergence across these measures is not necessarily expected and divergent cognitive and physiological findings have been reported in several recent investigations ( Cisler et al, 2020 , Crombie et al, 2021a , Esser et al, 2020 ; Taschereau-Dumouchel et al, 2019 ). These data further demonstrate the need for research to specifically probe the various ways of assessing fear learning in order to be more precise in making inferences about differences in fear learning (e.g., associated with genetic or clinical individual differences or as outcome variables in clinical trials) ( Ehlers et al, 2020 , Lonsdorf et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Consistent with a fear extinction model, a major component of exposure-based therapies involves gradual, repeated exposure to the traumatic memory (CS+) in a safe context in order to weaken the predictive value of the CS+, which ideally weakens the ability of the trauma-related memories or reminders to elicit distress and anxiety responses ( Cisler et al, 2014 ). Based on this understanding, fear conditioning paradigms are frequently administered in the lab, often to: 1) identify physiological, cognitive, and neural mechanisms of fear acquisition and extinction learning in those with and without clinical anxiety disorders, and 2) examine the effect of experimental manipulations on the acquisition, consolidation, or recall of extinction learning, under the notion that there may be therapeutic potential for treatments that enhance these processes ( Crombie et al, 2021a , Fullana et al, 2020 , Crombie et al, 2021b ; Mataix-Cols et al, 2017 , Tuerk et al, 2018 , Zoellner et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The influence of FAAH genetic variation on physiological, cognitive, and neural signatures of fear acquisition and extinction learning in women with PTSD

Crombie

Privratsky

Schomaker

et al. 2022

NeuroImage: Clinical

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Highlights PTSD is often treated with psychotherapies based on principles of fear acquisition and extinction. Increased AEA has resulted in enhanced extinction learning and recall among healthy adults. These effects have not yet been comprehensively examined in a PTSD population. Results suggest that genetic variation within the FAAH gene affects how fear learning is tuned in women with PTSD.

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Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The influence of FAAH genetic variation on physiological, cognitive, and neural signatures of fear acquisition and extinction learning in women with PTSD

Crombie

Privratsky

Schomaker

et al. 2022

NeuroImage: Clinical

Self Cite

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“…This implies that exercise specifically influences extinction memory consolidation. In line with this notion, aerobic exercise carried out during the consolidation window (i.e., immediately after fear extinction training) reduced spontaneous recovery in a nonclinical sample (Keyan & Bryant, 2019a) as well as reinstatement of fear (Crombie et al, 2021) and trauma‐related distress and vividness in patients with PTSD (Voorendonk et al, 2021). Taken together, the few studies published to date suggest that a single bout of physical exercise can indeed not only facilitate extinction consolidation and reduce ROF but also underscore that the timing of exercise in relation to the specific phase of the extinction process could be crucial for its potential to modulate the long‐term expression of extinction memories.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

The impact of physical exercise on the consolidation of fear extinction memories

et al. 2023

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Based on the mechanisms of fear extinction, exposure therapy is the most common treatment for anxiety disorders. However, extinguished fear responses can reemerge even after successful treatment. Novel interventions enhancing exposure therapy efficacy are therefore critically needed. Physical exercise improves learning and memory and was also shown to enhance extinction processes. This study tested whether physical exercise following fear extinction training improves the consolidation of extinction memories. Sixty healthy men underwent a differential fearconditioning paradigm with fear acquisition training on day 1 and fear extinction training followed by an exercise or resting control intervention on day 2. On day 3, retrieval and reinstatement were tested including two additional but perceptually similar stimuli to explore the generalization of exercise effects. Exercise significantly increased heart rate, salivary alpha amylase, and cortisol, indicating successful exercise manipulation. Contrary to our expectations, exercise did not enhance but rather impaired extinction memory retrieval on the next day, evidenced by significantly stronger differential skin conductance responses (SCRs) and pupil dilation (PD). Importantly, although conditioned fear responses were successfully acquired, they did not fully extinguish, explaining why exercise might have boosted the consolidation of the original fear memory trace instead. Additionally, stronger differential SCRs and PD toward the novel stimuli suggest that the memory enhancing effects of exercise also generalized to perceptually similar stimuli. Together, these findings indicate that physical exercise can facilitate both the long‐term retrievability and generalization of extinction memories, but presumably only when extinction was successful in the first place.

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“…Interestingly, 24 hours post exercise the intervened group demonstrated significantly lower retention of conditioned fear to the CS+ (but higher responses to the CS-). Another study in women diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) used aerobic exercise as an intervention during a consolidation window of 24 hours following fear extinction learning (Crombie et al, 2021). Their results demonstrated significantly reduced threat expectancy ratings following a reinstatement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No conclusive evidence for an association between differential observational threat learning and physical activity in everyday life

Petalas,

Müller,

Haaker

2024

Preprint

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Background: Exercise is well known to generally improve health status in humans and seems to be beneficial not only for physical, but also learning processes. The evidence for the impact of general physical activity on emotional learning, is however scarce . Here, we test thepre-registeredhypothesisthattheindividualphysicalactivitylevelofthepastseven days is positively associated with observational threat learning, indicated by the differentiation between threat and safety cues. Methods: We conducted a two day online study. 90 healthy participants (mean age = 27.82 years) engaged by completing questionnaires (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S/STAI-T and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ)) on day one, followed by an observational learning task. Participants were asked to rate their discomfort, fear, and physiological response towards the CS+ and CS- both before and after the learning phase using a visual analogue scale. On day two (approximately 24 hours after day one), participants completed the STAI-S again, followed by a direct generalization task. Similar to before, participants were asked to report their discomfort, fear, and physiological response both before and after the generalization task. To quantify the level of physical activity (PA) of the past seven days a sum score of the IPAQ was calculated. The pre-registered primary endpoint was to test for apositive association between PA and the ability to discriminate the conditioned stimuli. Results: Pearsons correlation analyses revealed no significant correlations between the combined total physical activity (PA) score and differential ratings of subjective discomfort (r = 0.11, pcorr = 0.150), fear (r = 0.203, pcorr = 0.081) or physiological responses (r = 0.145, pcorr = 0.17) on day 1. The same analysis revealed no significant correlations on day 2, either (differential ratings of subjective discomfort, r = 0.053, pcorr = 0.93, fear, r = -0.068, pcorr = 0.99, and physiological responses, r = -0.072, pcorr = 0.751 on day 2). However, we also found no sufficient evidence supporting the null hypothesis (i.e. no correlation) for the association between differential learning and PA on day 1, when applying bayesian statistics. Instead, we found a covariation between the ratings of discomfort and physical activity, as well as between ratings of fear and physical activity on day 1 and 2 within a repeated measurement ANOVA. This was supported by bayesian statistics. Conclusion: Our results provided no convincing evidence for a correlation between differential observational threat learning and physical activity (as measured by the IPAQ). Future studies that provide a better control for individual physical activity are warranted.

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Aerobic exercise and consolidation of fear extinction learning among women with posttraumatic stress disorder

Cited by 30 publications

References 92 publications

The influence of FAAH genetic variation on physiological, cognitive, and neural signatures of fear acquisition and extinction learning in women with PTSD

The influence of FAAH genetic variation on physiological, cognitive, and neural signatures of fear acquisition and extinction learning in women with PTSD

The impact of physical exercise on the consolidation of fear extinction memories

No conclusive evidence for an association between differential observational threat learning and physical activity in everyday life

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