Preventing the return of fear in humans using reconsolidation update mechanisms

By D. Schiller, Marie H Monfils, Candace M. Raio, David C. Johnson, Joseph E LeDoux, Elizabeth A. Phelps. Nature, 2009

1,213 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent research on changing fears has examined targeting reconsolidation. During reconsolidation, stored information is rendered labile after being retrieved. Pharmacological manipulations at this stage result in an inability to retrieve the memories at later times, suggesting that they are erased or persistently inhibited. Unfortunately, the use of these pharmacological manipulations in humans can be problematic. Here we introduce a non-invasive technique to target the reconsolidation of fear memories in humans. We provide evidence that old fear memories can be updated with non-fearful information provided during the reconsolidation window. As a consequence, fear responses are no longer expressed, an effect that lasted at least a year and was selective only to reactivated memories without affecting others. These findings demonstrate the adaptive role of reconsolidation as a window of opportunity to rewrite emotional memories, and suggest a non-invasive technique that can be used safely in humans to prevent the return of fear.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/39dda766dbdc405d85b4a7205c7418647003019a

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Citations in the corpus

The molecular and systems biology of memory. (2014, positive): “Schiller et al. (2010) adapted a similar procedure in humans.”
Reconsolidation-Extinction Interactions in Fear Memory Attenuation: The Role of Inter-Trial Interval Variability (2017, background): “…reconsolidation blockade via pharmacological (Nader et al., 2000a; Alberini, 2005; Debiec and LeDoux, 2013) or behavioral (Monfils et al., 2009; Schiller et al., 2010; Jones and Monfils, 2013; Luo et al., 2015) interventions during a specific post-retrieval reconsolidation window alters the…”
Maximizing Exposure Therapy: An Inhibitory Learning Approach (2014, neutral): “This effect has since been demonstrated in healthy human samples (Agren et al., 2012; Schiller et al., 2010).”
Political Neuroscience: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship (2014, background): “Fear - conditioned responses can be learned very rapidly , often after a single exposure to the stimulus in a threatening context , and such associations may be difficult to extinguish ( Bouton , 1994 ; but see Schiller et al .”
The restless engram: consolidations never end. (2012, methodology): “Schiller et al. (2010) adapted for humans the procedure devised by Monfils et al. (2009) for the rat.”
RESILIENCE TRAINING THAT CAN CHANGE THE BRAIN (2018, background): “…Reduces fear Amygdala, MPFC Craske, Treanor, Conway, Zbozinek, and Vervliet (2014); Milad and Quirk (2012); Beckers and Kindt (2017); Schiller et al. (2010); Agren (2012); Steinfurth et al. (2014) Active avoidance Reduces fear and facilitates active coping in the future (even in…”
The ecology of human fear: survival optimization and the nervous system (2015, background): “Others have shown that a safety stimulus during an aversive experience results in increased activity in the vmPFC (Schiller et al., 2010) while decreasing threat also results in increased activity in the same region (Mobbs et al., 2010).”
Don't fear ‘fear conditioning’: Methodological considerations for the design and analysis of studies on human fear acquisition, extinction, and return of fear (2017, neutral): “reconsolidation after reactivation through CS+ presentation during the rating; (Schiller et al., 2010), or directly influence the strength of the developing CR due to the emotion regulating effect of affect labelling (Lieberman et al.”