Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： The memory reconsolidation theory holds that consolidated memories can be reactivated into an unstable state again, which is called the reconsolidation process. During this period, the activated memories are susceptive to new information and therefore, the interruption of it can update or eliminate original memories. Behavioral or pharmacological interventions after memory reactivation are proved to be an effective way to extinguish fear memories and prevent relapse. The behavioral intervention, which is the so-called retrieval-extinction paradigm can eliminate conditioned fear through applying extinction training during the reconsolidation time window. The neural mechanisms of this effect, however, are still largely unknown. Based on reviewing present studies in animals and humans, we concluded the critical brain areas which were proved to be playing an important part in retrieval extinction process and their effect mechanisms, including hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Furthermore, we summarized the controversial points in theories and manipulations in order to provide insights for future explorations.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Under the framework of Reconsolidation Interference of conditioned fear memory, Prediction Error (PE) has been demonstrated as a necessary condition of memory destabilization. However, the role of PE in destabilizing fear memories of different strengths is unclear. The degree of PE that is needed to effectively reactivate fear memories may be dependent on the strength of memory. It is unknown whether the PE used to reactivate weak memories is also effective in destabilizing stronger memories. Memory strength was proved to be an important boundary condition of memory reconsolidation; however, explorations of solutions to overcome the boundary are rare. Among factors that are possible to help to overcome the boundary condition, the effects of stress hormones are worth exploring. However, the manipulation of memory strength in human laboratory studies has not been well developed. Thus, the present study has three main aims: (1) to test the effect of fear memory strength in a human laboratory setting based on previous results in animal studies; (2) to examine the effect of PE during reactivation on destabilizing different strength memories and (3) to test the possible influence of post-reactivation exogenous stress to the retrieval-extinction of fear memories. These results indicate that PE used to destabilize weak memories is insufficient to destabilize strong memories; and that post-reactivation acute stress cannot nullify this deficit which is due to boundary conditions (e.g., strength). We discuss possible interpretations of these results and the implications for the translation of retrieval-extinction to clinical practice. The three days retrieval-extinction paradigm was adopted in the present study. We manipulated memory strength through two kinds of acquisition procedures on the first day, which varied the predictability of the unconditioned stimulus (US) occurrence after the conditioned stimulus (CS). Twenty-four hours later, a reminder containing a single PE was used to reactivate memories, which was followed by a stress task (Social Evaluate Cold Pressor test, SECPT) or not before extinction. After 24 hours, a test of spontaneous recovery and reinstatement was utilized to measure the return of fear in each condition. All participants were divided into three conditions: CS-Predictable US_no Stress Group, CS-Unpredictable US_no Stress Group and the CS-Unpredictable US_Stress Group. Skin conductance response (SCR) and fear-potentiated startle response (FPS) were used as measurements of conditioned fear. The results showed that there was a relatively stronger increase in fear response (SCR) from Day 1 to Day 2 in the CS-Unpredictable US condition than the CS-Predictable US condition, which may suggest a difference in memory strength between conditions. And for the weak fear memory (CS-predictable US), the reactivation that involved a single PE and was followed by extinction training prevented the spontaneous recovery, especially on the SCR measurement. On the other hand, in the enhanced memory condition (CS-unpredictable US), the extinguished memory returned in the memory test on the third day, which suggests a failure of memory destabilization. Furthermore, when the post-reactivation acute stress task was adopted in the enhanced memory condition, the return of fear further increased, compared with the no stress manipulation conditions.
Subjects: Psychology >> Medical Psychology submitted time 2021-02-05
Abstract： Under the framework of Reconsolidation Interference of conditioned fear memory, Prediction Error (PE) is demonstrated as a necessary condition of memory destabilization. However, the role of PE in destabilizing fear memories of different strength is unclear. The degree of PE that is needed to effectively reactivate fear memory may be changeable according to the strength of memory. It is unknown whether the PE used to reactivate weak memories is still valid in retrieving enhanced memories. Besides, explorations of possible solutions are rare if strong memories are resistant to undergoing reconsolidation. Among factors that are possible to help to overcome the boundary condition, the effects of stress hormone are worth exploring. However, the manipulation of fear strength in human studies in the laboratory has not been well developed. Thus, the present study has three main aims: (1) based on previous results in animal studies, we tested the effect of fear memory strength manipulation in the laboratory settings in humans; (2) to examine the effect of PE during reactivation on destabilizing different strength memories and (3) to test the possible influence of post-reactivation exogenous stress to the retrieval-extinction of fear memories. The three days retrieval-extinction paradigm was adopted in the present study. We manipulated the memory strength through two kinds of acquisition procedures on the first day, which varied the predictability of the unconditioned stimulus (US) occurrence after the conditioned stimulus (CS). 24 hours later, a reminder contained a single PE was used to reactivate memories, then followed by a stress task (Social Evaluate Cold Pressor test, SECPT) or not before extinction. After 24 hours, a test of spontaneous recovery and reinstatement was utilized to measure the return of fear in each condition. All participants were divided into three conditions: CS-Predictable US_no Stress Group, CS-Unpredictable US_no Stress Group and the CS-Unpredictable US_Stress Group. The skin conductance response (SCR) and fear-potentiated startle response (FPS) were used as measurements of conditioned fear. The results showed that there was a relatively higher increase in fear response (SCR) from Day 1 to Day 2 in the CS-Unpredictable US condition than the CS-Predictable US condition, which may suggest the difference of memory strength among conditions. And for the weak fear memory (CS-predictable US), the reactivation that contained single PE and followed by extinction training can prevent the spontaneous recovery, especially on the SCR measurement. While in the enhanced memory condition (CS-unpredictable US), the extinguished memory had a distinct relapse in the memory test on the third day, which suggests the failure of memory destabilization. Furthermore, under this condition, if the acute stress task was adopted after reactivation, the return of fear would further increase, comparing with the no stress manipulation conditions. These results indicate that PE used to reactivate weak memories is insufficient to destabilize strong memories; and the post-reactivate acute stress cannot compensate this deficit caused by boundary conditions (e.g., strength). We further discussed possible interpretations of these results and the implications for the translation of retrieval-extinction to clinical practice and the cure of post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Applied Psychology submitted time 2018-04-18 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Memories with a strong fear emotional connotation play a pathogenic role in a variety of emotional disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorder and phobia. So how to fundamentally eliminate the acquired fear memory and prevent relapse has been the difficulties of clinical treatment. The retrieval extinction paradigm, which is based on the memory reconsolidation theory, was demonstrated an effective and promising way in eliminating undesired memories. The key of this paradigm is how to retrieve fear memory to undergo reconsolidation, which makes the memory fragile and labile. Research has shown that when a mismatch between what is expected based on previous experiences and the actual state of events at retrieval, the prediction error will occur so that the memory will undergo reconsolidation. In the present study, we change CS-US (conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus) matching rules during the retrieval to manipulate the conditions of PE to explore whether the amount of PE is a crucial factor to open reconsolidation window. In the current study, two tones and four colored figures were used, one of the tones and two of the figures (CS+) were paired with a mild shock to the wrist (US) on 50% of the trails, while the other figures and tones were never paired with shock (CS−). the skin conductance response (SCR) was the measure of fear. Four groups of participants were fear conditioned on day1 using a 50% reinforcement schedule, in such a way that they could expect the CS to be followed by shock every other trial. During memory reactivation on day2, participants received one unreinforced CS+ (No PE group), two unreinforced CS+ (Negative PE group), two reinforced CS+ (Positive PE group) and four unreinforced CS+ (Multiple PE group) respectively, following extinction training. On day3, participants took part in tests of spontaneous recovery and reinstatement of fear through re-extinction and regaining. The results showed that the SCR was not significantly different among the four groups in the fear conditioning of the first day and extinction of the second day. However, on the third day, No PE group and Multiple PE group showed increased SCR in spontaneous fear recovery and reinstatement test, whereas Negative PE group and Positive PE group did not show any significant increased SCR in spontaneous fear recovery or reinstatement. Our study provided further evidence that the behavioral interference during reconsolidation (retrieval-extinction) can effectively eliminate fear and block fear relapse under certain circumstances. According to the results, we demonstrate that the prediction error is a necessary condition of initiating reconsolidation and a lack of prediction error during retrieval will leave the memory trace in an inactive state. Additionally, the amount of PE is a crucial factor and too much prediction error will cause failure. It is inferred that a limited degree of mismatch between the memory and events at the time of retrieval will induce memory destabilization.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2018-03-22 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Memories with a strong fear emotional connotation play a pathogenic role in a variety of emotional disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorder and phobia. So how to fundamentally eliminate the acquired fear memory and prevent relapse has been the difficulties of clinical treatment. The retrieval extinction paradigm, which is based on the memory reconsolidation theory, was demonstrated an effective and promising way in eliminating undesired memories. The key of this paradigm is how to retrieve fear memory to undergo reconsolidation, which makes the memory fragile and labile. Research has shown that when a mismatch between what is expected based on previous experiences and the actual state of events at retrieval, the prediction error will occur so that the memory will undergo reconsolidation. In the present study, we change CS-US (conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus) matching rules during the retrieval to manipulate the conditions of PE to explore whether the amount of PE is a crucial factor to open reconsolidation window. In the current study, two tones and four colored figures were used, one of the tones and two of the figures (CS+) were paired with a mild shock to the wrist (US) on 50% of the trails, while the other figures and tones were never paired with shock (CS−). the skin conductance response (SCR) was the measure of fear. Four groups of participants were fear conditioned on day1 using a 50% reinforcement schedule, in such a way that they could expect the CS to be followed by shock every other trial. During memory reactivation on day2, participants received one unreinforced CS+ (No PE group), two unreinforced CS+ (Negative PE group), two reinforced CS+ (Positive PE group) and four unreinforced CS+ (Multiple PE group) respectively, following extinction training. On day3, participants took part in tests of spontaneous recovery and reinstatement of fear through re-extinction and regaining. The results showed that the SCR was not significantly different among the four groups in the fear conditioning of the first day and extinction of the second day. However, on the third day, No PE group and Multiple PE group showed increased SCR in spontaneous fear recovery and reinstatement test, whereas Negative PE group and Positive PE group did not show any significant increased SCR in spontaneous fear recovery or reinstatement. Our study provided further evidence that the behavioral interference during reconsolidation (retrieval-extinction) can effectively eliminate fear and block fear relapse under certain circumstances. According to the results, we demonstrate that the prediction error is a necessary condition of initiating reconsolidation and a lack of prediction error during retrieval will leave the memory trace in an inactive state. Additionally, the amount of PE is a crucial factor and too much prediction error will cause failure. It is inferred that a limited degree of mismatch between the memory and events at the time of retrieval will induce memory destabilization
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