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This study investigates the effect of awareness of stimulus contingencies on BOLD responses within the amygdala, the orbitofrontal, and the occipital cortex, and on differential skin conductance responses (SCRs) during fear conditioning. Of two geometric figures, the paired conditioned stimulus (CS+) predicted an electrical stimulus (unconditioned stimulus = UCS), whereas the unpaired conditioned stimulus (CS-) was not followed by the UCS. Awareness of stimulus contingencies was manipulated experimentally, creating an aware and an unaware group: a distracter figure and a working memory task were introduced to conceal the stimulus contingencies of the conditioning paradigm, hence preventing contingency detection in the unaware group. The aware group was informed beforehand about the relation between CS+, CS-, and UCS. Differential SCRs were only obtained in the aware but not in the unaware group. Conversely, we observed enhanced responses of the amygdala, the orbitofrontal, and the occipital cortex to the CS+ in the unaware group only. Thus, we found a dissociation of SCR differentiation and the activation of a neural fear network depending on the presence or absence of awareness. These results support a model of fear conditioning that distinguishes between a more cognitive level of learning, reflected in contingency awareness and differential SCRs, and the awareness independent activation of a fear network.
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In an fMRI study, effects of contingency awareness on conditioned responses were assessed in three groups comprising 118 subjects. A differential fear-conditioning paradigm with visual conditioned stimuli, an electrical unconditioned stimulus and two distractors was applied. The instructed aware group was informed about the contingencies, whereas the distractors prevented contingency detection in the unaware group. The third group (learned aware) was not informed about the contingencies, but learned them despite the distractors. Main effects of contingency awareness on conditioned responses emerged in several brain structures. Post hoc tests revealed differential dorsal anterior cingulate, insula and ventral striatum responses in aware conditioning only, whereas the amygdala was activated independent of contingency awareness. Differential responses of the hippocampus were specifically observed in learned aware subjects, indicating a role in the development of contingency awareness. The orbitofrontal cortex showed varying response patterns: lateral structures showed higher responses in instructed aware than unaware subjects, the opposite was true for medial parts. Conditioned subjective and electrodermal responses emerged only in the two aware groups. These results confirm the independence of conditioned amygdala responses from contingency awareness and indicate specific neural circuits for different aspects of fear acquisition in unaware, learned aware and instructed aware subjects.
Erkunden
Team
- Vaitl (2)
Eintragsart
Sprache
- Englisch (2)
Thema
- Awareness/*physiology
- Adolescent (1)
- Adult (2)
- Amygdala/physiology (1)
- Arousal/physiology (1)
- Association Learning/*physiology (1)
- Brain Mapping (1)
- Cerebellum/physiology (1)
- Cerebral Cortex/*physiology (2)
- Conditioning, Classical/*physiology (1)
- Conditioning, Psychological/*physiology (1)
- Dominance, Cerebral/physiology (1)
- Electric Stimulation (1)
- Fear/*physiology (1)
- Fear/*psychology (1)
- Female (2)
- Frontal Lobe/physiology (1)
- Galvanic Skin Response/*physiology (2)
- Humans (2)
- Image Processing, Computer-Assisted (1)
- *Image Processing, Computer-Assisted (1)
- *Knowledge of Results, Psychological (1)
- Learning/physiology (1)
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (1)
- *Magnetic Resonance Imaging (1)
- Male (2)
- Occipital Lobe/physiology (1)
- Pattern Recognition, Visual/*physiology (1)
- Photic Stimulation (1)
- Synaptic Transmission/physiology (1)
- Young Adult (1)