Learning About Safety: Conditioned Inhibition as a Novel Approach to Fear Reduction Targeting the Developing Brain.

Learning About Safety: Conditioned Inhibition as a Novel Approach to Fear Reduction Targeting the Developing Brain. Am J Psychiatry. 2020 Nov 10;:appiajp202020020232 Authors: Odriozola P, Gee DG Abstract Adolescence is a peak time for the onset of psychiatric disorders, with anxiety disorders being the most common and affecting as many as 30% of youths. A core feature of anxiety disorders is difficulty regulating fear, with evidence suggesting deficits in extinction learning and corresponding alterations in frontolimbic circuitry. Despite marked changes in this neural circuitry and extinction learning throughout development, interventions for anxious youths are largely based on principles of extinction learning studied in adulthood. Safety signal learning, based on conditioned inhibition of fear in the presence of a cue that indicates safety, has been shown to effectively reduce anxiety-like behavior in animal models and attenuate fear responses in healthy adults. Cross-species evidence suggests that safety signal learning involves connections between the ventral hippocampus and the prelimbic cortex in rodents or the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in humans. Particularly because this pathway follows a different developmental trajectory than fronto-amygdala circuitry involved in traditional extinction learning, safety cues may provide a novel approach to reducing fear in youths. In this review, the authors leverage a translational f...
Source: The American Journal of Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Am J Psychiatry Source Type: research