BACKGROUND Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with enhanced noradrenergic activity. Animal and human studies demonstrate that noradrenergic stimulation augments consolidation of fear learning. Retrieval of well-established memories by presenting a learned fear cue triggers reconsolidation processes during which memories may be updated, weakened, or strengthened. We previously re...

BACKGROUND Families of children affected with atopic dermatitis (AD) often report fear and anxiety regarding treatment with topical corticosteroids (TCS), which may lead to reduced compliance. The objective of our study was to measure, through a standardized questionnaire, fear of TCS in families of pediatric patients with AD and to identify items associated with fear. METHODS Families of ped...

objective: it seems that emotion regulation strategies and fear of positive evaluation are among psychological components. which play critical role in anxiety disorders. the present study predicted school anxiety based on emotion regulation strategies and fear of positive evaluation in female students in savadkouh iran.  methods: this study is a descriptive-correlative research. a total of 110 ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES We argue that the stimuli used in traditional fear conditioning paradigms are too simple to model the learning and unlearning of complex fear memories. We therefore developed and tested an adapted fear conditioning paradigm, specifically designed for the study of complex associative memories. Second, we explored whether manipulating the meaning and complexity of the CS...

Although conditioned fear can be effectively extinguished by unreinforced exposure to a threat cue, fear responses tend to return when the cue is encountered some time after extinction (spontaneous recovery), in a novel environment (renewal), or following presentation of an aversive stimulus (reinstatement). As extinction represents a context-dependent form of new learning, one possible strateg...

OBJECTIVE The hallmark of anxiety disorders is excessive fear. Previous studies have suggested that selective neural projections from Basal nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST) to amygdala and vice-versa precisely control the fear learning process. However the exact mechanism how the BNST controls fear consolidation and its extinction is largely unknown. In the present study we observed the chang...

In many altricial species, fear responses such as freezing do not emerge until sometime later in development. In infant rats, fear to natural predator odors emerges around postnatal day (PN) 10 when infant rats begin walking. The behavioral emergence of fear is correlated with two physiological events: functional emergence of the amygdala and increasing corticosterone (CORT) levels. Here, we hy...

Despite implications that stranger fear is an important aspect of developing behavioral inhibition, a known risk factor for anxiety, normative and atypical developmental trajectories of stranger fear across infancy and toddlerhood remain understudied. We used a large, longitudinal data set (N = 1285) including multi-trait, multi-method assessments of temperament to examine the normative course ...

Social interactions with conspecifics markedly alter the neuroendocrine, behavioral and emotional responses to stressful events. Some of these effects involve observational learning and result in lasting changes of fear-motivated behavior. While most evidence reveals increased fearfulness after observation of fearful demonstrators (models) in a number of species, a few reports from human and no...

NMDA receptors in the amygdala seem to be critical for fear conditioning in naive rats. Recent spatial-learning studies suggest that previous learning protected animals from the amnesic effect of NMDA antagonists on new learning (of a similar behavioral task). Therefore, the present study examined whether blocking of NMDA receptors in the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) prevents new f...