The prevailing neurocircuitry models of anxiety disorders have been amygdalocentric
in form. The bases for such models have progressed from theoretical considerations,
extrapolated from research in animals, to in vivo human imaging data. For example,
one current model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been highly influenced
by knowledge from rodent fear conditioning research. Given the phenomenological parallels
between fear conditioning and the pathogenesis of PTSD, we have proposed that PTSD
is characterized by exaggerated amygdala responses (subserving exaggerated acquisition
of fear associations and expression of fear responses) and deficient frontal cortical
function (mediating deficits in extinction and the capacity to suppress attention/response
to trauma-related stimuli), as well as deficient hippocampal function (mediating deficits
in appreciation of safe contexts and explicit learning/memory). Neuroimaging studies
have yielded convergent findings in support of this model. However, to date, neuroimaging
investigations of PTSD have not principally employed conditioning and extinction paradigms
per se. The recent development of such imaging probes now sets the stage for directly
testing hypotheses regarding the neural substrates of fear conditioning and extinction
abnormalities in PTSD.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
June 8,
2006
Received in revised form:
June 7,
2006
Received:
October 12,
2005
Identification
Copyright
© 2006 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
