Extending the Examination of the Fear Extinction Network Beyond Anxiety and Fear-Based Disorders: Insight Into Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Lacking the ability to fear dangerous situations could lead to excessive risk-taking and undesirable behavioral consequences; the reverse could lead to heightened anxiety levels and fear generalization. Fear conditioning and extinction paradigms have proven to be extremely useful to study the mechanisms underlying fear learning and emotion regulation abilities in both healthy and clinical human populations. Most of the clinical studies have been performed in individuals suffering from either anxiety disorders or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), given that these psychopathologies are known for their dysregulated levels of fear and anxiety.