Combat veterans show normal discrimination during differential trace eyeblink conditioning, but increased responsivity to the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus

Burriss, Louisa; Ayers, Edwin; Powell, D. A.

doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2006.04.004

Cited by 23 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This would be consistent with prior work that has shown faster learning by individuals with PTSS in a computer task where the goal is to earn points and avoid point loss (Myers et al, 2013), although other studies have found no such effects of PTSD or PTSS burden on computer-based tasks where the goal is to earn points (but there is no threat of point loss; Levy-Gigi, et al, 2012; Kostek, et al, 2014; Anastasides, et al, 2015). This idea is also generally consistent with a number of other studies showing better associative learning in PTSD patients on tasks that involve learning to avoid explicitly aversive stimuli, such as mild electric shocks(Blechert, et al, 2007; Orr, et al, 2000), airpuffs to the eye(Burriss, et al, 2007), trauma-specific pictures(Wessa, et al, 2007), or loud noise bursts(Peri, et al, 2000). However, in the current task, subjects typically first learn to escape from punishment (i.e., hiding once the mothership starts shooting, to terminate point loss), and then to avoid punishment altogether (via anticipatory hiding initiated during the warning period).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Sheynin

Shind

Radell

et al. 2017

Stress

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While avoidance is a core symptom of PTSD, little is known about whether individuals with PTSD show a general cognitive bias to acquire and express avoidance, in situations not related to trauma or fear. Here, we used a computer-based task to examine operant acquisition and extinction of avoidance in participants with and without severe self -reported PTSD symptoms. A total of 119 participants (77 male, 42 female; 74 veteran, 45 civilian) with symptoms (PTSS; n=63) or with few/no symptoms (noPTSS; n=56) performed a task, in which they controlled a spaceship and could shoot a target to gain points or hide in “safe areas” to escape or avoid on-screen aversive events. Results show that participants with PTSS exhibited more avoidance across trials than no PTSS participants, particularly due to more avoidance behavior in PTSS females compared to noPTSS females. Avoidance behavior decreased across extinction trials but interactions with PTSS and gender fell short of significance. Overall, PTSD symptoms were associated with propensity to acquire and express avoidance behavior, in both civilians and veterans, and even in a cognitive task that does not explicitly involve trauma or fear. This effect was more pronounced in females, highlighting the role of gender differences in PTSD symptomatology. Importantly, this study also demonstrates the potential of an objective assessment of avoidance behavior, which could be used to supplement the common but limited self-report tools.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Sheynin

Shind

Radell

et al. 2017

Stress

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“…Whereas evidence for associative-learning deficits in PTSD is mixed, with support coming from some studies (Burriss, Ayers, Ginsberg, & Powell, 2008) but not others (Burriss, Ayers & Powell, 2007; Geuze, Vermetten, Ruf, de Kloet, Westenberg, 2008; Werner, et al 2009), the psychopathological endpoint of this model (sustained contextual anxiety) is substantiated by startle-EMG studies evidencing heightened contextual anxiety in PTSD. For example, Grillon and Baas (2003) identify a pattern of results across multiple studies in which heightened startle magnitudes in PTSD are found in aversive, but not benign, experimental contexts (for a review see Grillon & Baas, 2003), suggesting enhanced sensitivity to contextual anxiety among those with PTSD.…”

Section: Associative Fear-learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning models of PTSD: Theoretical accounts and psychobiological evidence

Lissek

Meurs

2015

International Journal of Psychophysiology

207

165

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Learning abnormalities have long been centrally implicated in posttraumatic psychopathology. Indeed of all anxiety disorders, PTSD may be most clearly attributable to discrete, aversive learning events. In PTSD, such learning is acquired during the traumatic encounter and is expressed as both conditioned fear to stimuli associated with the event and more general over-reactivity—or failure to adapt—to intense, novel, or fear-related stimuli. The relatively straightforward link between PTSD and these basic, evolutionarily old, learning processes of conditioning, sensitization, and habituation affords models of PTSD comprised of fundamental, experimentally tractable mechanisms of learning that have been well characterized across a variety of mammalian species including humans. Though such learning mechanisms have featured prominently in explanatory models of psychological maladjustment to trauma for at least 90 years, much of the empirical testing of these models has occurred only in the past two decades. The current review delineates the variety of theories forming this longstanding tradition of learning-based models of PTSD, details empirical evidence for such models, attempts an integrative account of results from this literature, and specifies limitations of, and future directions for, studies testing learning models of PTSD.

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“…Differences in acquisition of conditioned eyeblink responses has been demonstrated in individuals demonstrating anxiousness and avoidant behaviors including anxiety (Tracy et al, 1999; Ayers and White, 2003; Burriss et al, 2007; Holloway et al, 2012) and BI (Myers et al, 2011). Spence and colleagues (Farber and Spence, 1953; Spence and Beecroft, 1954) initiated research on the relationship between anxiousness in healthy individuals and associative learning.…”

Section: Facilitated Acquisition Of Eyeblink Conditioning In Those Vumentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilitated acquisition of eyeblink conditioning in those vulnerable to anxiety disorders

Caulfield¹,

McAuley²,

Servatius³

2013

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Behavioral inhibition (BI) increases vulnerability to develop anxiety disorders and is typified by avoidance and withdrawal from novel objects, people, and situations. The present study considered the relationship between BI and temperamental risk factors, such as trait anxiety and acquisition rate of a classically conditioned eyeblink response. One-hundred seventy-four healthy undergraduate students (mean age 20.3 years, 71.8% female) were given the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and a battery of self-report measures of BI consisting of the Adult and Retrospective Measures of Behavioral Inhibition (AMBI/RMBI) and the Concurrent and Retrospective Self Report of Inhibition (CSRI/RSRI). Participants then underwent standard delay classical eyeblink conditioning consisting of 45 trials with a 500-ms CS overlapping and co-terminating with a 10-ms airpuff US. Individuals with higher scores on the AMBI and Trait Anxiety Inventory, but not the other measures, showed faster acquisition of a conditioned eyeblink response than individuals with lower scores. Results support a relationship between facilitated acquisition of inter-stimulus relationships and risk for anxiety, and suggest that some measures assessing anxiety vulnerability better capture this relationship than others.

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Combat veterans show normal discrimination during differential trace eyeblink conditioning, but increased responsivity to the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus

Cited by 23 publications

References 31 publications

Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Greater avoidance behavior in individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms

Learning models of PTSD: Theoretical accounts and psychobiological evidence

Facilitated acquisition of eyeblink conditioning in those vulnerable to anxiety disorders

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