Yap Carol S L, Richardson Rick
School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Behav Neurosci. 2007 Oct;121(5):1053-62. doi: 10.1037/0735-7044.121.5.1053.
Research has shown that learned fear emerges in a response-specific sequence. For example, freezing is observed at a younger age than is potentiated startle (P. Hunt & B. A. Campbell, 1997). The present study shows that the age at which a specific learned fear response emerges is influenced by the animal's early experiences. Specifically, fear potentiation of startle emerges earlier in development if the rat is given prior fear conditioning to a different stimulus. Some constraints of this "facilitation" effect are determined in follow-up experiments. This facilitation effect may provide a novel way of testing the development of the neural circuits underlying learned fear.
研究表明，习得性恐惧以特定的反应序列出现。例如，与惊吓反应增强相比，冻结反应在更年幼的年龄就会出现（P. 亨特和B. A. 坎贝尔，1997）。本研究表明，特定习得性恐惧反应出现的年龄受动物早期经历的影响。具体而言，如果大鼠先前接受过针对不同刺激的恐惧条件训练，惊吓反应的恐惧增强在发育过程中会出现得更早。在后续实验中确定了这种“促进”效应的一些限制因素。这种促进效应可能为测试习得性恐惧背后神经回路的发育提供一种新方法。
