University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Transl Psychiatry. 2021 Nov 13;11(1):584. doi: 10.1038/s41398-021-01715-x.
Previous studies have shown that activating the attachment system attenuates fear learning. This study aimed to explore whether attachment priming can also impact on fear extinction processes, which underpin the management of anxiety disorders. In this study, 81 participants underwent a standard fear conditioning and extinction protocol on day 1 and returned 24 h later for an extinction recall and reinstatement test. Half the participants were primed to imagine their closest attachment figure prior to undergoing extinction training, while the other half were instructed to imagine a positive situation. Fear-potentiated startle and subjective expectancies of shock were measured as the primary indicators of fear. Attachment priming led to less relapse during the reinstatement test at the physiological but not subjective levels. These findings have translational potential to imply that activating awareness of attachment figures might augment long-term safety memories acquired in existing treatments to reduce relapse of fear.
先前的研究表明，激活依恋系统可以减弱恐惧学习。本研究旨在探讨依恋启动是否也会影响恐惧消退过程，而后者是焦虑障碍管理的基础。在这项研究中，81 名参与者在第 1 天接受了标准的恐惧条件反射和消退协议，并在 24 小时后返回进行消退回忆和重新激发测试。一半的参与者在进行消退训练之前被提示想象他们最亲近的依恋对象，而另一半则被指示想象一个积极的情境。作为恐惧的主要指标，恐惧增强的惊跳反应和对电击的主观预期被测量。在生理层面而非主观层面，依恋启动导致重新激发测试中复发减少。这些发现具有转化的潜力，表明激活对依恋对象的意识可能会增强现有治疗中获得的长期安全记忆，以减少恐惧的复发。
