Prefrontal Cortex Stimulation Enhances Fear Extinction Memory in Humans.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Animal fear conditioning studies have illuminated neuronal mechanisms of learned associations between sensory stimuli and fear responses. In rats, brief electrical stimulation of the infralimbic cortex has been shown to reduce conditioned freezing during recall of extinction memory. Here, we translated this finding to humans with magnetic resonance imaging-navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Methods

Subjects (N = 28) were aversively conditioned to two different cues (day 1). During extinction learning (day 2), TMS was paired with one of the conditioned cues but not the other. TMS parameters were similar to those used in rat infralimbic cortex: brief pulse trains (300 ms at 20 Hz) starting 100 ms after cue onset, total of four trains (28 TMS pulses).

SUBMITTER: Raij T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5936658 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature