Reinstatement of fear to an extinguished conditioned context

Abstract

Rats were shocked in the black but not the white compartment of a shuttlebox and then exposed to the black compartment in the absence of the shock unconditioned stimulus (US) to extinguish fear responses (passive avoidance). In five experiments, rats were then shocked in a reinstatement context (distinctively different from the shuttlebox) to determine the conditions that reinstate extinguished fear responding to the black compartment. Rats shocked immediately upon exposure to the reinstatement chamber failed to show either reinstatement of avoidance of the black compartment or fear responses (freezing) when tested in the reinstatement chamber. In contrast, rats shocked 30 sec after exposure to the reinstatement chamber exhibited both reinstatement of avoidance of the black compartment and freezing responses in the reinstatement chamber (Experiment 1). Rats shocked after 30 sec of exposure to the reinstatement chamber but then exposed to that chamber in the absence of shock failed to exhibit reinstatement of the avoidance response and did not freeze when tested in the reinstatement chamber (Experiment 2). Rats exposed to a signaled shock in the reinstatement chamber and then exposed to that chamber in the absence of shock also failed to exhibit reinstatement of the avoidance response (Experiment 5). These rats showed fear responses to the signal but not to the reinstatement chamber. Finally, rats exposed for some time (20 min) to the reinstatement chamber before shock exhibited reinstatement of the avoidance response but failed to freeze when tested in the reinstatement chamber (Experiments 3 and 4). These results are discussed in terms of the contextual conditioning (Bouton, 1994) and the US representation (Rescorla, 1979) accounts of postextinction reinstatement.

Reinstatement of conditioned responses in human differential fear conditioning

“…The results of these studies are not always consistent. For example, while Bouton and Bolles (1979) claimed that reinstatement could only be found when after extinction the USs were presented in the test context, Richardson, Duffield, Bailey and Westbrook (1999) observed reinstatement in a test context different from the reinstatement context.…”

Pathway specific activation of ventral hippocampal cells projecting to the prelimbic cortex diminishes fear renewal

“…This reduction only occurs in the context where extinction training takes place; in other contexts, there is are-emergence of the fear response, known as contextual renewal (Bouton, 2004;Bouton, Westbrook, Corcoran, & Maren, 2006;Rauhut, Thomas, & Ayres, 2001). The reemergence of the CR following extinction has also been observed under other situations, such as spontaneous recovery and reinstatement (Bouton & Bolles, 1979;Haberlandt, Hamsher, & Kennedy, 1978;Harris, Jones, Bailey, & Westbrook, 2000;Pavlov, 1927;Quirk, 2002;Rauhut et al, 2001;Rescorla & Heth, 1975;Richardson, Duffield, Bailey, & Westbrook, 1999;Robbins, 1990;Schiller et al, 2008), supporting the idea that the original fear memory is preserved and that extinction represents the formation of a new inhibitory association rather than erasure of the original memory (Bouton et al, 2006;Haberlandt et al, 1978;Quirk, 2002;Robbins, 1990;Schiller et al, 2008). Since the expression of renewal appears to depend on several factors (Cahill & Milton, 2019;Chen, Wang, Wang, & Li, 2017;Goode & Maren, 2014), understanding how the re-emergence of fear could be controlled is of fundamental importance for anxiety disorders.…”

A review on human reinstatement studies: an overview and methodological challenges

“…Rodent studies have demonstrated that timing of reinstatement US presentation with respect to reinstatement context onset has an impact on the degree of reinstatement (Richardson et al 1999), an experimental detail which has not been given attention in human work. Furthermore, experimental phases (acquisition, extinction, reinstatement, reinstatement test) usually take place on distinct days while in human studies they often follow upon each other immediately (see Table 2), which hampers translation between species.…”