Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Weesperplein 4, 1018 XA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Biol Psychol. 2013 Jan;92(1):43-50. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.09.016. Epub 2011 Oct 8.
Disrupting reconsolidation seems to be a promising approach to dampen the expression of fear memory. Recently, we demonstrated that disrupting reconsolidation by a pharmacological manipulation specifically targeted the emotional expression of memory (i.e., startle response). Here we test in a human differential fear-conditioning paradigm with fear-relevant stimuli whether the spacing of a single unreinforced retrieval trial relative to extinction learning allows for "rewriting" the original fear association, thereby preventing the return of fear. In contrast to previous findings reported by Schiller et al. (2010), who used a single-method for indexing fear (skin conductance response) and fear-irrelevant stimuli, we found that extinction learning within the reconsolidation window did not prevent the recovery of fear on multiple indices of conditioned responding (startle response, skin conductance response and US-expectancy). These conflicting results ask for further critical testing given the potential impact on the field of emotional memory and its application to clinical practice.
破坏再巩固似乎是抑制恐惧记忆表达的一种有前途的方法。最近，我们证明了通过专门针对记忆的情绪表达（即惊跳反应）的药理学操作来破坏再巩固。在这里，我们在一个具有与恐惧相关刺激的人类差异恐惧条件作用范式中测试了以下情况：相对于消退学习，单次未强化检索试验的间隔是否允许“重写”原始的恐惧关联，从而防止恐惧的回归。与 Schiller 等人（2010 年）的先前发现相反，他们使用单一方法来标记恐惧（皮肤电反应）和与恐惧无关的刺激，我们发现，在再巩固窗口内的消退学习并不能防止在多个条件反应指标（惊跳反应、皮肤电反应和 US 预期）上恢复恐惧。鉴于这些结果对情绪记忆领域及其在临床实践中的应用可能产生的影响，需要进一步的严格测试来验证这些相互矛盾的结果。
