Fear Conditioning and Extinction in Anxious and Nonanxious Youth and Adults: Examining a Novel Developmentally Appropriate Fear-Conditioning Task

Shechner, Tomer; Britton, Jennifer C.; Ronkin, G B A Emily; Jarcho, Johanna M.; Mash, A B A Jamie; Michalska, Kalina J.; Leibenluft, Ellen; Pine, Daniel S.

doi:10.1002/da.22318

Cited by 83 publications

(74 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The magnitude of this effect was consistent with that in previous studies with healthy adults (Lau et al, 2011; Shechner et al, 2015) and typically developing children within this age range (Gao et al, 2010; Neumann et al, 2008; Pattwell et al, 2012), and we did not detect any age differences in fear acquisition or extinction learning. This result may reflect the fact that the oldest participants in our study were 10 years of age; previous age differences have mostly been observed in adolescents, who display attenuated fear extinction learning compared with children and adults (Pattwell et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Although potent at eliciting individual differences in fear, many youth abort the task because they find it too aversive (Britton et al, 2013). The large number of youth discontinuing the task due to the aversiveness of the UCS prompted the creation of a new task designed to elicit fear while remaining tolerable for sensitive populations, including young children (Shechner et al, 2015). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A developmental analysis of threat/safety learning and extinction recall during middle childhood

Michalska

Shechner

Hong

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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The current study examined developmental changes in fear learning and generalization in 54 healthy 5–10-year old children using a novel fear conditioning paradigm. In this task, the conditioned stimuli (CS+/CS−) were two blue and yellow colored cartoon bells, and the unconditioned stimulus was an unpleasant loud alarm sound presented with a red cartoon bell. Physiological and subjective data were acquired. Three weeks after conditioning, 48 of these participants viewed the CS−, CS+, and morphed images resembling the CS+. Participants made threat–safety discriminations while appraising threat and remembering the CS+. Although no age-related differences in fear learning emerged, patterns of generalization were qualified by child age. Older children demonstrated better discrimination between the CS+ and CS morphs than younger age groups and also reported more fear to stimuli resembling the CS+ than younger children. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A developmental analysis of threat/safety learning and extinction recall during middle childhood

Michalska

Shechner

Hong

et al. 2016

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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“…In these studies, differential conditioning is [71,76,77]. Although, some studies suggest that anxious youth show larger SCR and SR fear to both the CS+ and the CS-, a larger differential response is not reported [41,72,74,75].…”

Section: Threat Conditioning and Extinction In Youth With Anxiety mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although some studies found extinction to be achieved in unaffected controls [74] and/or across affected and unaffected groups [76], other studies found that youth with anxiety disorders exhibited deficits in extinction learning [72-74,76]. Specifically, group differences during extinction were found for youth with anxiety disorders on SCR and SR measures [41,72,74].…”

Section: Threat Conditioning and Extinction In Youth With Anxiety mentioning

confidence: 99%

Extinction learning in childhood anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder: implications for treatment

McGuire

Orr

Essoe

et al. 2016

Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics

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Introduction Threat conditioning and extinction play an important role in anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although these conditions commonly affect children, threat conditioning and extinction have been primarily studied in adults. However, differences in phenomenology and neural architecture prohibit the generalization of adult findings to youth. Areas covered A comprehensive literature search using PubMed and PsycInfo was conducted to identify studies that have used differential conditioning tasks to examine threat acquisition and extinction in youth. The information obtained from this review helps to clarify the influence of these processes on the etiology and treatment of youth with OCD, PTSD and other anxiety disorders. Thirty studies of threat conditioning and extinction were identified. Expert Commentary Youth with anxiety disorders, OCD, and PTSD have largely comparable threat acquisition relative to unaffected controls, with some distinctions noted for youth with PTSD or youth who have suffered maltreatment. However, impaired extinction was consistently observed across youth with these disorders and appears to be consistent with deficiencies in inhibitory learning. Incorporating strategies to improve inhibitory learning may improve extinction learning within extinction-based treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Strategies to improve inhibitory learning in CBT are discussed.

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“…Typically, these paradigms use unconditioned stimuli such as white noise, unpleasant images, or a combination of the two (Casey et al, 2013; Shechner et al, 2014). As in rodents, fear extinction in humans is also selectively attenuated during adolescence relative to children and adults (Pattwell et al, 2012b) (Figure 2A).…”

Section: Sensitive Periods For Fear Learning and Regulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Treating the Developing versus Developed Brain: Translating Preclinical Mouse and Human Studies

Casey

Glatt

Lee

2015

Neuron

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Summary Behaviors and underlying brain circuits show characteristic changes across the life-span that produce sensitive windows of vulnerability and resilience to psychopathology. Understanding the developmental course of these changes may inform which treatments are best at what ages. Focusing on behavioral domains and neurobiological substrates conserved from mouse to human supports reciprocal hypothesis generation and testing that leverages the strengths of each system in understanding their development. Introducing human genetic variants into mice can further define effects of individual variation on normative development, how they contribute to risk and resilience for mental illness, and inform personalized treatment opportunities. This article emphasizes the period of adolescence, when there is a peak in the emergence of mental illness, in particular, anxiety disorders. We present cross-species studies relating fear learning to anxiety across development, and discuss how clinical treatments can be optimized for individuals and targeted to the biological states of the developing brain.

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Fear Conditioning and Extinction in Anxious and Nonanxious Youth and Adults: Examining a Novel Developmentally Appropriate Fear-Conditioning Task

Cited by 83 publications

References 27 publications

A developmental analysis of threat/safety learning and extinction recall during middle childhood

A developmental analysis of threat/safety learning and extinction recall during middle childhood

Extinction learning in childhood anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder: implications for treatment

Treating the Developing versus Developed Brain: Translating Preclinical Mouse and Human Studies

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