Conditioned Stimulus Extinction Research Articles

Acquisition learning is stronger for aversive than appetitive events

Appetitive and aversive learning are both key building blocks of adaptive behavior, yet knowledge regarding their differences is sparse. Using a capsaicin heat pain model in 36 healthy participants, this study directly compared the acquisition and extinction of conditioned stimuli (CS) predicting pain exacerbation and relief. Valence ratings show stronger acquisition during aversive compared to appetitive learning, but no differences in extinction. Skin conductance responses and contingency ratings confirmed these results. Findings were unrelated to individual differences in pain sensitivity or psychological factors. Our results support the notion of an evolutionarily hardwired preponderance to acquire aversive rather than appetitive cues as is protective for acute aversive states such as pain but may contribute to the development and maintenance of clinical conditions such as chronic pain, depression or anxiety disorders.

Spontaneous recovery can be prevented in appetitive conditioning with rats

Two Pavlovian appetitive conditioning experiments with rats demonstrated that spontaneous recovery can be strongly reduced (prevented). The experiments also investigated potential common factors associated with that prevention of spontaneous recovery after extinction. After pairings of a conditioned stimulus (CS) with a food unconditioned stimulus (US), an extinction cue (EC) was presented during extinction and spontaneous recovery testing with the CS. Replicating Brooks and Bowker (2001), EC–US pairings in the CS extinction–test interval subsequently resulted in the EC strongly reducing (preventing) spontaneous recovery to the CS (Experiment 1). Experiment 1 also assessed an “erasure” hypothesis of how the EC may reduce spontaneous recovery. Experiment 2 assessed EC– or US–alone presentations, or unpairings of EC and US, in the CS extinction–test interval. Spontaneous recovery was also prevented when the EC was presented alone or unpaired with the US, but USs alone interfered with the EC’s spontaneous recovery–preventing effect. No evidence was found for the EC operating by erasure, conditioned inhibition, generalized extinction, or generalized extinction. Together the results suggest that after CS extinction additional EC presentations are sufficient to prevent spontaneous recovery.

The metabotropic glutamate 5 receptor is necessary for extinction of cocaine-associated cues.

There is currently no medication approved specifically to treat cocaine addiction. Behavioural interventions such as cue exposure therapy (CET) rely heavily on new learning. Antagonism of the metabotropic glutamate 5 (mGlu5 ) receptor has emerged as a potential treatment, by reducing the reinforcing properties of cocaine. However, mGlu5 receptor activity is necessary for learning; therefore, such agents could interfere with behavioural treatments. We used a novel rodent model of CET to test the effects of mGlu5 negative and positive allosteric modulators (NAM and PAM) on behavioural therapy. Rats were trained to press a lever for cocaine in the presence of a discrete cue [conditioned stimulus (CS)] and then extinguished in the absence of the CS. Following lever extinction, half the rats received CS extinction in the same chambers but with the levers withdrawn; the remaining rats received no CS extinction. Before this session, rats received a systemic administration of either vehicle or a mGlu5 NAM (MTEP, experiment 1) or PAM (CDPPB, experiment 2). Cue-induced reinstatement was tested in a drug-free session the following day. At reinstatement, rats that had received CS extinction showed reduced responding. This effect was attenuated by MTEP treatment before CS extinction. In contrast, administration of CDPPB (PAM) led to decreased reinstatement the following day, regardless of extinction condition. These results suggest that mGlu5 receptor activity is both necessary and sufficient for efficient extinction of a cocaine-associated CS. Therefore, mGlu5 PAMs could enhance the efficacy of CET.

Habituation and extinction of fear recruit overlapping forebrain structures

Establishing the neurocircuitry involved in inhibiting fear is important for understanding and treating anxiety disorders. To date, extinction procedures have been predominately used to examine the inhibition of learned fear, where fear is reduced to a conditioned stimulus (CS) by presenting it in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus (US). However, learned fear can also be reduced by habituation procedures where the US is presented in the absence of the CS. Here we used expression of the activity marker c-Fos in rats to compare the recruitment of several forebrain structures following fear habituation and extinction. Following fear conditioning where a tone CS was paired with a loud noise US, fear was then reduced the following day by either presentation of the CS or US alone (i.e. CS extinction or US habituation, respectively). This extinction and habituation training recruited several common structures, including infralimbic cortex, basolateral amygdala, midline thalamus and medial hypothalamus (orexin neurons). Moreover, this overlap was shared when examining the neural correlates of the expression of habituation and extinction, with common recruitment of infralimbic cortex and midline thalamus. However, there were also important differences. Specifically, acquisition of habituation was associated with greater recruitment of prelimbic cortex whereas expression of habituation was associated with greater recruitment of paraventricular thalamus. There was also less recruitment of central amygdala for habituation compared to extinction in the retention phase. These findings indicate that largely overlapping neurocircuitries underlie habituation and fear extinction and imply common mechanisms for reducing fear across different inhibitory treatments.

Chronic stress disrupts fear extinction and enhances amygdala and hippocampal Fos expression in an animal model of post-traumatic stress disorder

Chronic stress may impose a vulnerability to develop maladaptive fear-related behaviors after a traumatic event. Whereas previous work found that chronic stress impairs the acquisition and recall of extinguished fear, it is unknown how chronic stress impacts nonassociative fear, such as in the absence of the conditioned stimulus (CS) or in a novel context. Male rats were subjected to chronic stress (STR; wire mesh restraint 6h/d/21d) or undisturbed (CON), then tested on fear acquisition (3 tone-footshock pairings), and two extinction sessions (15 tones/session) within the same context. Then each group was tested (6 tones) in the same context (SAME) or a novel context (NOVEL), and brains were processed for functional activation using Fos immunohistochemistry. Compared to CON, STR showed facilitated fear acquisition, resistance to CS extinction on the first extinction day, and robust recovery of fear responses on the second extinction day. STR also showed robust freezing to the context alone during the first extinction day compared to CON. When tested in the same or a novel context, STR exhibited higher freezing to context than did CON, suggesting that STR-induced fear was independent of context. In support of this, STR showed increased Fos-like expression in the basolateral amygdala and CA1 region of the hippocampus in both the SAME and NOVEL contexts. Increased Fos-like expression was also observed in the central amygdala in STR-NOVEL vs. CON-NOVEL. These data demonstrate that chronic stress enhances fear learning and impairs extinction, and affects nonassociative processes as demonstrated by enhanced fear in a novel context.

Renewal and reinstatement of the conditioned but not the unconditioned response following habituation of the unconditioned stimulus

Research on the inhibition of learned fear currently relies almost exclusively on one specific procedure, namely extinction of the conditioned stimulus (CS). Importantly, however, learned fear responses can be reduced by a number of other procedures, including habituation of the unconditioned stimulus (US). We recently demonstrated that reductions in learned fear following US habituation, like CS extinction, were subject to both renewal and reinstatement (Storsve et al., 2010). The present study further investigates the associative and non-associative processes shared between habituation and extinction. Given that habituation is typically context-independent (Mackintosh, 1987), in the present study we directly compared renewal and reinstatement of both a conditioned response (CR; freezing) and an unconditioned response (UR; startle) following habituation. It was found that the reduction in conditioned freezing resulting from habituation was context specific (i.e., a change in context led to a renewal of the conditioned fear response; Experiment 1) and was attenuated when a pre-test shock was given (i.e., reinstatement of conditioned fear was observed; Experiment 2). In contrast, habituation of an unconditioned response elicited by the US (i.e., a startle response) was unaffected by either a change in test context or administration of a pre-test shock. This dissociation in the effects of habituation on learned and unlearned responses is discussed in relation to theories of fear extinction.

Human fear conditioning and extinction: Timing is everything…or is it?

A differential fear conditioning paradigm was used with 107 healthy undergraduate participants to evaluate the effect of conditioned stimulus (CS) temporal properties on fear acquisition and extinction. Two minute duration CSs were used for Day 1 fear acquisition. Participants were randomized to receive either 1, 2, or 4min CS durations during Day 2 extinction. Extinction re-test was examined on Day 3 using the original acquisition CS duration (2min). Findings indicated that participants who were aware of the CS+/unconditioned stimulus (US) contingency (n=52) develop a temporal expectation about when the unconditioned stimulus will be delivered. Although the shorter duration CS resulted in greater fear reduction during extinction, cessation of fear responding at re-test was the same for CS extinction durations ranging from half the CS acquisition duration to twice the CS acquisition duration. Thus, extinction performance did not predict extinction at re-test, which could have important implications for optimizing exposure therapy for anxiety disorders.

US habituation, like CS extinction, produces a decrement in conditioned fear responding that is NMDA dependent and subject to renewal and reinstatement

Just as fear can be learned, it can also be inhibited. The most common way of reducing learned fear is through extinction, where the conditioned stimulus (CS) previously paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) is repeatedly presented on its own. Another, much less commonly studied, way to inhibit learned fear is by habituating, or devaluing, the US. In this procedure, fear responding to a CS is reduced by repeatedly presenting the US in the absence of the CS following the conditioning phase. The purpose of the present study was to directly compare the effects of US habituation and CS extinction on a learned fear response (freezing). Experiment 1 demonstrated that US habituation given either after (Experiment 1A) or before (Experiment 1B) fear conditioning reduced freezing to the CS at test. We then showed that the reduction in freezing resulting from either US habituation or CS extinction was context-specific (i.e., a change in context led to a renewal of the learned fear response; Experiment 2) and, furthermore, was attenuated when a pre-test shock was given (i.e., reinstatement of fear was observed in both cases; Experiment 3). Finally, Experiment 4 demonstrated that an injection of the NMDA antagonist MK-801 prior to US habituation impaired long-term retention of the learning that takes place during this procedure. Together, these results suggest that the decrement in conditioned fear responses produced by US habituation and CS extinction could rely on overlapping processes.

Auditory Cortex is Important in the Extinction of Two Different Tone-Based Conditioned Fear Memories in Rats.

Extensive fear extinction research is guided by the view that there are structures in the brain that develop inhibitory control over the expression of conditioned fear memories. While the medial prefrontal cortex has recently captured attention as the locus of plasticity essential for extinction of conditioned fear, the auditory cortex is another plausible cortical area involved in extinction learning since it is considered a sufficient conditioned stimulus (CS) pathway in tone fear conditioning. We examined the role of auditory cortex in extinction of auditory-based fear memories with a standard tone-on conditioning, wherein a tone CS predicted a footshock unconditioned stimulus (US), or a novel tone-off conditioning, in which the tone was continually present and the offset of the tone was the CS predicting the US. Rats with bilateral auditory cortex lesions were trained in either paradigm and subsequently trained in extinction to the CS. Auditory cortex lesions had no effect on acquisition but impaired extinction to both CSs. These findings indicate that the auditory cortex contributes to extinction of wide-ranging auditory fear memories, as evidenced by deficits in both tone-on CS and tone-off CS extinction training.

Conditioned inhibition produced by extinction-mediated recovery from the relative stimulus validity effect: A test of acquisition and performance models of empirical retrospective revaluation.

Empirical retrospective revaluation is a phenomenon of Pavlovian conditioning and human causal judgment in which posttraining changes in the conditioned response (Pavlovian task) or causal rating (causal judgment task) of a cue occurs in the absence of further training with that cue. Two experiments tested the contrasting predictions made by 2 families of models concerning retrospective revaluation effects. In a conditioned lick-suppression task, rats were given relative stimulus validity training, consisting of reinforcing a compound of conditioned stimuli (CSs) A and X and nonreinforcement of a compound of CSs B and X, which resulted in low conditioned responding to CS X. Massive posttraining extinction of CS A not only enhanced excitatory responding to CS X, but caused CS B to pass both summation (Experiment 1) and retardation (Experiment 2) tests for conditioned inhibition. The inhibitory status of CS B is predicted by the performance-focused extended comparator hypothesis (J. C. Denniston, H. I. Savastano, & R. R. Miller, 2001), but not by acquisition-focused models of empirical retrospective revaluation (e.g., A. Dickinson & J. Burke, 1996; L. J. Van Hamme & E. A. Wasserman, 1994).

Renewal to the Signal Value of an Unconditioned Stimulus

When conditioned stimulus (CS)–unconditioned stimulus (US) pairings are given in one context (Context A), and CS extinction is given in a different context (Context B), responding recovers when the CS is tested in Context A (so-called ABA renewal). In addition to ABA renewal, AAB renewal has also recently been shown (Bouton & Ricker, 1994). Using an appetitive conditioning preparation with rats, the present studies tested for ABA and AAB renewal to the signal value of a US. In four experiments, US signal value consistently showed ABA, but not AAB, renewal. Further, after acquisition, there was some evidence that a context change disrupted US signal value or that responding in extinction was less persistent with a context change. Implications for theories of renewal and the context specificity of conditioning are considered.

Context as an occasion setter following either CS acquisition and extinction or CS acquisition alone

Three experiments used conditioned lick suppression with rats in order to investigate the necessary conditions for obtaining occasion setting by context. Experiment 1 sought occasion setting by context as a product of conditioned-stimulus (CS) excitatory training only. Associative summation of the CS and context was observed, but no difference in responding inside versus outside the CS training context was found after devaluing direct context-unconditioned stimulus (US) associations and controlling for both familiarization and generalization decrement between training and nontraining contexts. In Experiment 2, two stimuli were conditioned in separate contexts, and subsequently each CS was or was not extinguished either in the same context in which it had been trained or in the training context of the other CS. This procedure equated the associative values of the two contexts during acquisition, extinction, and testing. No occasion setting by context was seen either with or without extinction of the CSs. In Experiment 3, a renewal paradigm was used in which a single CS was trained in context A and extinguished in Context B. Testing showed renewed responding to the CS in Context A. A context-CS summation test using an unambiguous CS trained in a third context found Contexts A and B to be equally excitatory. We hypothesize that the lack of occasion setting in Experiment 2, in contrast to that of Experiment 3, resulted either from extinction of the positive occasion-setting properties of the two contexts as a consequence of their both being sites of CS extinction or a failure of a contextual occasion setter to carry information about the particular stimulus qualities of a given CS with which it was conditioned (i.e., occasion setters act on US representations, not particular CS-US associations).