Computational Modelling Reveals Slower Safety Learning and Threat Extinction are Associated With Higher Anxiety Severity in Remote Fear Conditioning.

ABSTRACT: Anxiety disorders are chronic, pervasive, and debilitating; characterised by a persistent or exaggerated response to distal or abstract threats. Impaired threat discrimination (distinguishing safe from threatening stimuli) and impaired threat extinction (learning a once threatening stimulus is now safe), are known risk factors in the development and persistence of anxiety disorders. These effects can be experimentally elicited through fear conditioning. First, repeated trials of paired aversive and neutral stimuli are delivered during a fear acquisition phase, followed by repeated trials with no aversive stimuli in a fear extinction phase. The effects are typically measured through comparison of end-phase data points, or simple descriptive or statistical models. Computational modelling, by

SUBMITTER: Kerr T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12829443 | biostudies-literature | 2026

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature