1. Modeling fear-conditioned bradycardia in humans
- Author
-
Castegnetti, Giuseppe, Tzovara, Athina, Staib, Matthias, Paulus, Philipp C, Hofer, Nicolas, Bach, Dominik R, University of Zurich, and Castegnetti, Giuseppe
- Subjects
Male ,Trace conditioning ,Conditioning, Classical ,Psychophysiological model ,Developmental psychology ,Electrocardiography ,0302 clinical medicine ,Heart Rate ,Oximetry ,Fear conditioning ,10093 Institute of Psychology ,General Neuroscience ,05 social sciences ,2800 General Neuroscience ,Fear ,Galvanic Skin Response ,2807 Endocrine and Autonomic Systems ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Neurology ,Original Article ,Female ,medicine.symptom ,Psychology ,2803 Biological Psychiatry ,2805 Cognitive Neuroscience ,Heart period ,Adult ,Bradycardia ,Fear memory ,Adolescent ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Overt behavior ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Models, Psychological ,Autonomic Nervous System ,050105 experimental psychology ,3206 Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,2806 Developmental Neuroscience ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,Developmental Neuroscience ,Memory ,Psychophysics ,medicine ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Biological Psychiatry ,Cued speech ,3205 Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Endocrine and Autonomic Systems ,Bayes Theorem ,Original Articles ,Autonomic nervous system ,10054 Clinic for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics ,2808 Neurology ,Skin conductance ,150 Psychology ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Delay conditioning - Abstract
Across species, cued fear conditioning is a common experimental paradigm to investigate aversive Pavlovian learning. While fear‐conditioned stimuli (CS+) elicit overt behavior in many mammals, this is not the case in humans. Typically, autonomic nervous system activity is used to quantify fear memory in humans, measured by skin conductance responses (SCR). Here, we investigate whether heart period responses (HPR) evoked by the CS, often observed in humans and small mammals, are suitable to complement SCR as an index of fear memory in humans. We analyze four datasets involving delay and trace conditioning, in which heart beats are identified via electrocardiogram or pulse oximetry, to show that fear‐conditioned heart rate deceleration (bradycardia) is elicited and robustly distinguishes CS+ from CS−. We then develop a psychophysiological model (PsPM) of fear‐conditioned HPR. This PsPM is inverted to yield estimates of autonomic input into the heart. We show that the sensitivity to distinguish CS+ and CS− (predictive validity) is higher for model‐based estimates than peak‐scoring analysis, and compare this with SCR. Our work provides a novel tool to investigate fear memory in humans that allows direct comparison between species.
- Published
- 2016