CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Sci Adv. 2021 Aug 18;7(34). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf4198. Print 2021 Aug.
Numerous animal studies have demonstrated that fear acquisition and expression rely on the coordinated activity of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and amygdala and that theta oscillations support interregional communication within the fear network. However, it remains unclear whether these results can be generalized to fear learning in humans. We addressed this question using intracranial electroencephalography recordings in 13 patients with epilepsy during a fear conditioning paradigm. We observed increased power and inter-regional synchronization of amygdala and mPFC in theta (4 to 8 hertz) oscillations for conditioned stimulus (CS+) versus CS-. Analysis of information flow revealed that the dorsal mPFC (dmPFC) led amygdala activity in theta oscillations. Last, a computational model showed that trial-by-trial changes in amygdala theta oscillations predicted the model-based associability (i.e., learning rate). This study provides compelling evidence that theta oscillations within and between amygdala, ventral mPFC, and dmPFC constitute a general mechanism of fear learning across species.
大量的动物研究表明，恐惧的获得和表达依赖于内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）和杏仁核的协调活动，而θ振荡支持恐惧网络内的区域间通讯。然而，这些结果是否可以推广到人类的恐惧学习中尚不清楚。我们在 13 名癫痫患者进行恐惧条件反射范式的颅内脑电图记录中解决了这个问题。我们观察到，在条件刺激（CS+）与 CS-相比，θ（4 至 8 赫兹）振荡中杏仁核和 mPFC 的功率增加，区域间同步增强。信息流分析表明，θ振荡中的背侧 mPFC（dmPFC）主导了杏仁核的活动。最后，计算模型表明，杏仁核θ振荡的逐次变化预测了基于模型的可联想性（即学习率）。这项研究提供了令人信服的证据，表明杏仁核、腹侧 mPFC 和 dmPFC 内和之间的θ振荡构成了跨物种恐惧学习的一般机制。
