TY - JOUR A1 - Szeska, Christoph A1 - Richter, Jan A1 - Wendt, Julia A1 - Weymar, Mathias A1 - Hamm, Alfons O. T1 - Promoting long-term inhibition of human fear responses by non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation during extinction training JF - Scientific reports N2 - Inhibiting fear-related thoughts and defensive behaviors when they are no longer appropriate to the situation is a prerequisite for flexible and adaptive responding to changing environments. Such inhibition of defensive systems is mediated by ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), limbic basolateral amygdala (BLA), and brain stem locus-coeruleus noradrenergic system (LC-NAs). Non-invasive, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) has shown to activate this circuit. Using a multiple-day single-cue fear conditioning and extinction paradigm, we investigated long-term effects of tVNS on inhibition of low-level amygdala modulated fear potentiated startle and cognitive risk assessments. We found that administration of tVNS during extinction training facilitated inhibition of fear potentiated startle responses and cognitive risk assessments, resulting in facilitated formation, consolidation and long-term recall of extinction memory, and prevention of the return of fear. These findings might indicate new ways to increase the efficacy of exposure-based treatments of anxiety disorders. KW - Amygdala KW - Autonomic nervous system KW - Electromyography – EMG KW - Extinction KW - Fear conditioning Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58412-w SN - 2045-2322 VL - 10 IS - 1 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weymar, Mathias A1 - Ventura-Bort, Carlos A1 - Wendt, Julia A1 - Lischke, Alexander T1 - Behavioral and neural evidence of enhanced long-term memory for untrustworthy faces JF - Scientific Reports N2 - In daily life, we automatically form impressions of other individuals on basis of subtle facial features that convey trustworthiness. Because these face-based judgements influence current and future social interactions, we investigated how perceived trustworthiness of faces affects long-term memory using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the current study, participants incidentally viewed 60 neutral faces differing in trustworthiness, and one week later, performed a surprise recognition memory task, in which the same old faces were presented intermixed with novel ones. We found that after one week untrustworthy faces were better recognized than trustworthy faces and that untrustworthy faces prompted early (350–550 ms) enhanced frontal ERP old/new differences (larger positivity for correctly remembered old faces, compared to novel ones) during recognition. Our findings point toward an enhanced long-lasting, likely familiarity-based, memory for untrustworthy faces. Even when trust judgments about a person do not necessarily need to be accurate, a fast access to memories predicting potential harm may be important to guide social behaviour in daily life. KW - Recognition Memory KW - Facial Expressions KW - Trustworthiness KW - Recollection KW - Amygdala KW - Metaanalysis KW - Information KW - Appearance KW - Perception KW - Trust Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55705-7 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 9 PB - Macmillan Publishers Limited CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Holz, Nathalie E. A1 - Buchmann, Arlette F. A1 - Boecker-Schlier, Regina A1 - Blomeyer, Dorothea A1 - Baumeister, Sarah A1 - Wolf, Isabella A1 - Rietschel, Marcella A1 - Witt, Stephanie H. A1 - Plichta, Michael M. A1 - Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas A1 - Banaschewski, Tobias A1 - Brandeis, Daniel A1 - Laucht, Manfred T1 - Role of FKBP5 in emotion processing: results on amygdala activity, connectivity and volume JF - Brain structure & function N2 - Accumulating evidence suggests a role of FKBP5, a co-chaperone regulating the glucocorticoid receptor sensitivity, in the etiology of depression and anxiety disorders. Based on recent findings of altered amygdala activity following childhood adversity, the present study aimed at clarifying the impact of genetic variation in FKBP5 on threat-related neural activity and coupling as well as morphometric alterations in stress-sensitive brain systems. Functional magnetic resonance imaging during an emotional face-matching task was performed in 153 healthy young adults (66 males) from a high-risk community sample followed since birth. Voxel-based morphometry was applied to study structural alterations and DNA was genotyped for FKBP5 rs1360780. Childhood adversity was measured using retrospective self-report (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) and by a standardized parent interview assessing childhood family adversity. Depression was assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory. There was a main effect of FKBP5 on the left amygdala, with T homozygotes showing the highest activity, largest volume and increased coupling with the left hippocampus and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Moreover, amygdala-OFC coupling proved to be associated with depression in this genotype. In addition, our results support previous evidence of a gene-environment interaction on right amygdala activity with respect to retrospective assessment of childhood adversity, but clarify that this does not generalize to the prospective assessment. These findings indicated that activity in T homozygotes increased with the level of adversity, whereas the opposite pattern emerged in C homozygotes, with CT individuals being intermediate. The present results point to a functional involvement of FKBP5 in intermediate phenotypes associated with emotional processing, suggesting a possible mechanism for this gene in conferring susceptibility to stress-related disorders. KW - FKBP5 KW - Childhood adversity KW - Amygdala KW - fMRI KW - Connectivity KW - Voxel-based morphometry Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-014-0729-5 SN - 1863-2653 SN - 1863-2661 VL - 220 IS - 3 SP - 1355 EP - 1368 PB - Springer CY - Heidelberg ER -