Understanding Human Fear Extinction: Insights from Psychophysiology.

The study of fear extinction has been driven largely by Pavlovian fear conditioning methods across the translational spectrum. The primary methods used to study these processes in humans have been recordings of skin conductance (historically termed galvanic skin response) and fear-potentiation of the acoustic startle reflex. As outlined in the following chapter, the combined corpus of this work has demonstrated the value of psychophysiology in better understanding the underlying neurobiology of extinction learning in healthy humans as well as those with psychopathologies. In addition, psychophysiological approaches, which allow for the preservation of methods between species, have shown their applicability to the assessment of wide-ranging treatment effects. The chapter concludes with potential trajectories for future study in this area.