Fear

Anger

Happiness

Sadness

Disgust

Surprise

*These reflect our effort to cope with the world*

Physiological Arousal

Cognitive Appraisal (what we think)

The Subjective Experience (our internal feelings)

Behavior (expression of this experience)

Stroke on Frontal Left Side: Sour Cynical Depressed

Stroke on Frontal Right Side: Carefree

Escape-Avoidance

(Escape Conditioning)

When shocked the animal jumps from one compartment to the next (escaping reinforcer)

- OR-

The animal makes a response before the shock is presented (avoidance)

-Model for Depression: when we can't escape it leads to depression-

-Involves activation of response (shouting, lever pressing)

-One compartment is always safe, one is dangerous

- More cortical involvement (understanding where "you" are going)

- If the rat is in a maze and gets shocked in every location at the maze except one, the rat will find the safe spot based on the discriminative stimuli

-The rat has to think about where he is going

- Preventing the response

- Stays on lighted (safe) side

(in another condition the animal is on a platform and when he steps off he is shocked)

- The effects of the shock decays as time goes on after the shock

(1) Extensive extinction does not work well

(2) Explicitly unpaired training eliminates renewal

(3) Inhibitor treatments are maximally effective

Brain Mechanisms of Fear 

Auditory Delay Conditioning

Brain Mechanisms of Fear 

Auditory Trace Conditioning

Brain Mechanisms of Fear

Central Nucleus (CE)

Brainstem

Hypothalamus

perisqueductal Gray

 Brain Mechanisms of Fear

Brain Stem

Reflex modulation

Autonomic Arousal

Brain Mechanisms of Fear

Hypothalamus

Autonomic Arousal

Stress Hormone

Brain Mechanisms of Fear

Perinqueductal Gray

Freezing

Analgesia

Brain Mechanisms of Fear 

Ventral Striatum

Instumental Behavior

Fear Conditioning Circuitry

(auditory)

- Learn to fear a tone

- The tone acquires the capacity to elicit defensive reastions (freezing)

- Tone and Shock stimuli converge in lateral amgydala (LA)

- LA communicates with the central nucleus (CE) which mediates freezing behavior

- The LA connects with the CE directly and by way of connections to other amygdala areas (inetercalated cell masses (ICM) which gate output and basal nucleus (B) which processes contextual information from the hippocampus

Fear Extinction: neural model

Stages of Fear Extinction in regards to Amygdala, Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex, and Hippocampus

(1) T-trials cause amygdala neurons to decrease firing rate, through fear learning reversal and/or new inhibitory rate

(2) The inhibitory memory trace between the cmPFC and the LA and. or (ICM) is established

(3a) after extinction learning, the vmPFC suppresses activity in the amygdala through inhibition of LA neurons and/ or activation of the ICM-resulting in rapid decrease of freezing behavior

(3b) Meanwhile, hippo-based contextual memory modulates neural activity of the vmPFC and/or LA but not through basal amygdala (B)during extinction expression to regulate the animal's behavioral response (decrease freezing behavior) if in the appropriate environment

Unconditioned Fears

Open Spaces (agarophobia)

Large/intense objects (startle reflex)

Acquisition of fear

Conditioning (individual experience)

Social learning (vicarious experience)

Elimination

Extinction

Counterconditioning

4 Examples of Relapse

Spontaneous Recovery

Reinstatement

Disinhibition

Renewal

Reacquisition

Reexposure to the Pavlovian pairing

(1) Identify/Percieve/Express Emotion

(2) Standing Emotions - transistions of emotion

(3) Using Emotions- to think clear and deductively

(4) Managing Emotions- organize skills around regulating emotions

Two-Factor Theory

(1) First the body is aroused (physioloical)

(2) Person tried to figure out why they feel the arousal

We pay more attention to negative stimuli than positive stimuli

(1) Conditioning- personal experience essential- "something that happened before made me afraid now"

(2) Social Learning- learning from social situations in which you encounter

(Vicarious Learning- learn from things that happen to others)

(1) Extinction

(2) Profit Conditioning

Spatial Contiguity

(1) Count the number of responses that you get during the CS period

(2) Compare that to what the animal was doing in a period of equal length that is merely before the CS

**The closer the value to Zero, the more suppression

**The closer to zero, the stronger the dear conditioning, the closer to 5 the weaker the fear conditioning

**The more suppression, the more fear

Coincidence Detector

convergence of inputs into a single neuron

(consolidating like stimuli and responses)

(1) active inhibition of the acquired fear related pathways

(2) the context of the situation has to be taken in account more than in acquisition