Enhanced discriminative fear learning of phobia-irrelevant stimuli in spider-fearful individuals.

Carina Mosig,Silvia Schneider,Cornelia Mohr,Jã¼Rgen Margraf,Dirk Adolph,Christian J Merz,Oliver T Wolf,Armin Zlomuzica

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00328

Carina Mosig, Silvia Schneider + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00328

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Abstract

Avoidance is considered as a central hallmark of all anxiety disorders. The acquisition and expression of avoidance, which leads to the maintenance and exacerbation of pathological fear is closely linked to Pavlovian and operant conditioning processes. Changes in conditionability might represent a key feature of all anxiety disorders but the exact nature of these alterations might vary across different disorders. To date, no information is available on specific changes in conditionability for disorder-irrelevant stimuli in specific phobia (SP). The first aim of this study was to investigate changes in fear acquisition and extinction in spider-fearful individuals as compared to non-fearful participants by using the de novo fear conditioning paradigm. Secondly, we aimed to determine whether differences in the magnitude of context-dependent fear retrieval exist between spider-fearful and non-fearful individuals. Our findings point to an enhanced fear discrimination in spider-fearful individuals as compared to non-fearful individuals at both the physiological and subjective level. The enhanced fear discrimination in spider-fearful individuals was neither mediated by increased state anxiety, depression, nor stress tension. Spider-fearful individuals displayed no changes in extinction learning and/or fear retrieval. Surprisingly, we found no evidence for context-dependent modulation of fear retrieval in either group. Here, we provide first evidence that spider-fearful individuals show an enhanced discriminative fear learning of phobia-irrelevant (de novo) stimuli. Our findings provide novel insights into the role of fear acquisition and expression for the development and maintenance of maladaptive responses in the course of SP.

Highlights

Patients with anxiety disorders and stressor-related disorders exhibit an increased avoidance of fear-related stimuli and situations
Alterations in fear acquisition and extinction have been found in patients with panic disorder (PD) (Michael et al, 2007) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Blechert et al, 2007)
Some of these alterations seem to reflect a general deficit that is shared by both PD and PTSD, whereas other deficits might be disorder-specific

Summary

Introduction

Patients with anxiety disorders and stressor-related disorders exhibit an increased avoidance of fear-related stimuli and situations. An increased tendency to avoid novel situations might constitute an important risk factor for the development and maintenance of clinical anxiety as shown in anxiety vulnerable individuals (e.g., behaviorally inhibited individuals, Fox et al, 2005) and animal models of anxiety vulnerability (Beck et al, 2010). Findings from these studies emphasized the importance of increased conditionability as a functional mechanism contributing to a strong avoidance behavior (Ricart et al, 2011; Myers et al, 2012; Holloway et al, 2014). Evidence from psychophysiological, behavioral, and imaging studies showed that individuals with high trait anxiety (Caulfield et al, 2013), patients with anxiety disorders (Lissek et al, 2005) as well as traumatized individuals (Milad et al, 2009; Norrholm et al, 2011; Jovanovic et al, 2013; Stevens et al, 2013) show systematic changes in the acquisition and extinction of conditioned fear

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