Proximal threats promote enhanced acquisition and persistence of reactive fear-learning circuits.

ABSTRACT: Physical proximity to a traumatic event increases the severity of accompanying stress symptoms, an effect that is reminiscent of evolutionarily configured fear responses based on threat imminence. Despite being widely adopted as a model system for stress and anxiety disorders, fear-conditioning research has not yet characterized how threat proximity impacts the mechanisms of fear acquisition and extinction in the human brain. We used three-dimensional (3D) virtual reality technology to manipulate the egocentric distance of conspecific threats while healthy adult participants navigated virtual worlds during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Consistent with theoretical predictions, proximal threats enhanced fear acquisition by shifting conditioned learning from cognitive to react

SUBMITTER: Faul L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7369317 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature