Luyten Laura, Beckers Tom
Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology, KU Leuven, Belgium.
Centre for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology, KU Leuven, Belgium.
Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2017 Oct;144:208-215. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2017.07.014. Epub 2017 Jul 29.
In 2009, Monfils and colleagues proposed a behavioral procedure that was said to result in a permanent attenuation of a previously established fear memory, thereby precluding a possible return of fear after extinction (Monfils, Cowansage, Klann, & LeDoux, 2009). By presenting a single retrieval trial one hour before standard extinction training, they found an enduring reduction of fear. The retrieval-extinction procedure holds great clinical potential, particularly for anxiety patients, but the findings are not undisputed, and several conceptual replications have failed to reproduce the effect. These failures have largely been attributed to small procedural differences. This preregistered study is the first endeavor to exactly replicate three key experiments of the original report by Monfils et al. (2009), thereby gauging the robustness of their seminal findings. Despite adhering to the original procedures as closely as possible, we did not find any evidence for reduced return of fear with the retrieval-extinction procedure relative to regular extinction training, as assessed through spontaneous recovery, reinstatement and renewal. Behavior of animals in the control condition (extinction only) was comparable to that in the original studies and provided an adequate baseline to reveal differences with the retrieval-extinction condition. Our null findings indicate that the effect sizes in the original paper may have been inflated and question the legitimacy of previously proposed moderators of the retrieval-extinction effect. We argue that direct experimental evaluation of purported moderators of the retrieval-extinction effect will be key to shed more light on its nature and prerequisites.
2009年，蒙菲尔斯及其同事提出了一种行为程序，据说该程序能使先前建立的恐惧记忆永久性减弱，从而防止消退后恐惧可能再次出现（蒙菲尔斯、考恩萨奇、克兰和勒杜，2009年）。通过在标准消退训练前一小时进行一次记忆提取试验，他们发现恐惧持续减轻。记忆提取-消退程序具有巨大的临床潜力，尤其是对焦虑症患者而言，但这些发现并非毫无争议，一些概念性重复实验未能重现这一效果。这些失败主要归因于程序上的细微差异。这项预先注册的研究是首次尝试精确复制蒙菲尔斯等人（2009年）原始报告中的三个关键实验，从而评估其开创性发现的稳健性。尽管尽可能严格遵循原始程序，但通过自发恢复、恢复和更新评估，我们并未发现相对于常规消退训练，记忆提取-消退程序有任何证据表明恐惧复发减少。对照条件下（仅消退）动物的行为与原始研究中的行为相当，并为揭示与记忆提取-消退条件的差异提供了充分的基线。我们的零结果表明，原始论文中的效应大小可能被夸大了，并对先前提出的记忆提取-消退效应调节因素的合理性提出了质疑。我们认为，对所谓的记忆提取-消退效应调节因素进行直接实验评估，将是更深入了解其性质和前提条件的关键。
