Neural reinstatement reveals divided organization of fear and extinction memories in the human brain.

ABSTRACT: Neurobiological research in rodents has revealed that competing experiences of fear and extinction are stored as distinct memory traces in the brain. This divided organization is adaptive for mitigating overgeneralization of fear to related stimuli that are learned to be safe while also maintaining threat associations for unsafe stimuli. The mechanisms involved in organizing these competing memories in the human brain remain unclear. Here, we used a hybrid form of Pavlovian conditioning with an episodic memory component to identify overlapping multivariate patterns of fMRI activity associated with the formation and retrieval of fear versus extinction. In healthy adults, distinct regions of the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus showed selective reactivation of fear versus extin

SUBMITTER: Hennings AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8792329 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature