Oxytocin Facilitates the Extinction of Conditioned Fear in Humans
| Autor: | Wolfgang Maier, Monika Eckstein, René Hurlemann, Keith M. Kendrick, Dirk Scheele, Claudia Scholz, Valery Grinevich, Benjamin Becker, Katrin Preckel, Thomas E. Schlaepfer |
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| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male drug effects [Galvanic Skin Response] Conditioning Classical Prefrontal Cortex Oxytocin Amygdala Young Adult Double-Blind Method medicine Humans ddc:610 Fear conditioning Prefrontal cortex Biological Psychiatry Fear processing in the brain physiology [Conditioning Classical] medicine.diagnostic_test Fear Galvanic Skin Response Extinction (psychology) Magnetic Resonance Imaging Healthy Volunteers drug effects [Prefrontal Cortex] medicine.anatomical_structure Anxiety medicine.symptom drug effects [Amygdala] Functional magnetic resonance imaging Psychology administration & dosage [Oxytocin] Neuroscience physiology [Fear] medicine.drug |
| Zdroj: | Biological psychiatry 78(3), 194-202 (2015). doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.10.015 |
| ISSN: | 0006-3223 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.10.015 |
| Popis: | BACKGROUND: Current neurocircuitry models of anxiety disorders posit a lack of inhibitory tone in the amygdala during acquisition of Pavlovian fear responses and deficient encoding of extinction responses in amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex circuits. Competition between these two responses often results in a return of fear, limiting control over anxiety. However, one hypothesis holds that a pharmacologic strategy aimed at reducing amygdala activity while simultaneously augmenting medial prefrontal cortex function could facilitate the extinction of conditioned fear. METHODS: Key among the endogenous inhibitors of amygdala activity in response to social fear signals is the hypothalamic peptide oxytocin. To address the question whether oxytocin can strengthen Pavlovian extinction beyond its role in controlling social fear, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment with 62 healthy male participants in a randomized, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled design. Specifically, subjects were exposed to a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm before receiving an intranasal dose (24 IU) of synthetic oxytocin or placebo. RESULTS: Oxytocin, when administered intranasally after Pavlovian fear conditioning, was found to increase electrodermal responses and prefrontal cortex signals to conditioned fear in the early phase of extinction and to enhance the decline of skin conductance responses in the late phase of extinction. Oxytocin also evoked an unspecific inhibition of amygdalar responses in both phases. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, our findings identify oxytocin as a differentially acting modulator of neural hubs involved in Pavlovian extinction. This specific profile of oxytocin action may open up new avenues for enhancing extinction-based therapies for anxiety disorders. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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