Journal
PSYCHIATRY RESEARCH
Volume 167, Issue 1-2, Pages 151-160Publisher
ELSEVIER IRELAND LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2007.12.014
Keywords
Acoustic startle response; Classical conditioning; Fear-potentiated startle; Electromyography; PTSD; Human
Categories
Funding
- Mental Health Service
- Atlanta DVA Medical Center
- STC Program
- Center for Behavioral Neuroscience
- National Science Foundation [IBN-9876754]
- American Psychiatric Association/Glaxo SmithKline
- National Institute of Mental Health [1R24MH067314-01A1, R37 MH47840]
- Kirschstein National Research Service [1F32 MH070129-01A2]
- Woodruff Foundation
- Emory University School of Medicine
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One of the central problems in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the inability to suppress fear even under safe conditions. The neural underpinnings of fear are clinically relevant but poorly understood. This study assessed fear potentiation and fear inhibition using fear-potentiated startle in a conditional discrimination procedure (AX+/BX-). We hypothesized that patients with PTSD would show normal fear potentiation and impaired fear inhibition. Subjects comprised 28 healthy volunteers and 27 PTSD patients (14 with low current symptoms, 13 with high current symptoms) who were presented with one set of colored lights (AX trials) paired with aversive air blasts to the throat, and a different series of lights (BX trials) presented without air blasts. We then presented A and B together (AB trials) to see whether B would inhibit fear potentiation to A. All groups showed robust fear potentiation in that they had significantly greater startle magnitude on AX trials than on noise-alone trials. However, the high-symptom PTSD group did not show fear inhibition: these subjects had significantly greater fear potentiation on the AB trials than both the controls and the low-symptom PTSD patients. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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