A Dopaminergic Basis for Fear Extinction

Raffael Kalisch; Anna M V Gerlicher; Sevil Duvarci

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2019.01.013

A Dopaminergic Basis for Fear Extinction

Trends Cogn Sci. 2019 Apr;23(4):274-277. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.01.013. Epub 2019 Feb 22.

Authors

Raffael Kalisch¹, Anna M V Gerlicher², Sevil Duvarci³

Affiliations

¹ Deutsches Resilienz Zentrum (DRZ), Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany; Neuroimaging Center (NIC), Focus Program Translational Neuroscience (FTN), Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany. Electronic address: rkalisch@uni-mainz.de.
² Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
³ Institute of Neurophysiology, Neuroscience Center, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.

PMID: 30803871
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.01.013

Abstract

It is a joyous relief when an event we dread fails to materialize. In fear extinction, the appetitive nature of an omitted aversive event is not a mere epiphenomenon but drives the reduction of fear responses and the formation of long-term extinction memories. Dopamine emerges as key neurobiological mediator of these related processes.

Keywords: consolidation; fear conditioning; memory; prediction error; reinforcement learning; reward.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Review

MeSH terms

Animals
Dopamine / physiology*
Extinction, Psychological / physiology*
Fear / physiology*
Humans
Memory, Long-Term / physiology*

Substances

Dopamine