Erratum to: “Inhibiting Human Aversive Memory by Transcranial Theta-Burst Stimulation to the Primary Sensory Cortex”, by Ojala et al. (Biol Psychiatry 2022; 92:149-157); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2022.01.021.
During data curation for public release, the authors discovered that the labeling of two experimental conditions was flipped in Figures 2 and 3, in one sentence of the results, and in the supplemental material. This was caused by a single error in one line of the program code. The error affects none of the statistical analyses or conclusions, and the scientific content is unaltered.
Specifically, the experiment used “simple” and “complex” stimuli, and the labels of these conditions were accidentally flipped. In the statistical analysis, “complexity” is a factor with only two levels, and so none of the statistical models are affected by this error. Because there were no significant interactions involving the “complexity” factor, the conclusions remain unchanged. The main finding of the study, that TMS reduces fear memory retention, arises across both levels of this factor and is therefore unchanged.
To correct this error, the following updates to the article have been made:
Article:
- •Results: The last sentence in the section Threat Conditioning on the Day Before Recall Test: SCRs and PSRs, “Visual inspection of the data and the pairwise results suggest that learning was overall worse for complex stimuli (Figure 3C, D; Table S3 in Supplement 1), but this was not supported by the interaction with CS type (Table 2)” was replaced with: “There was no significant interaction of learning and CS complexity for either SCR or PSR (Table 2).”
- •Figures 2 and 3 were replaced, with the simple and complex line and bar plot labels switched.
Supplement 1: This file was replaced, with the following updates made:
- •p. 1, Methods, Supplementary Figure 1. Fixed an error on PSR sample sizes in Acquisition phase: now “N = 37 (E: 17, C: 20)” vs. old “N = 34 (E: 18, C = 16).” This typo was not related to the complexity variable coding error.
- •p. 6, Methods, Stimulus randomization across participants. Simple and complex stimulus block order randomization sample size numbers were switched.
- •p. 12, Results, Supplementary Table 1. Simple and complex t-test results were switched.
- •p. 13, Results, Supplementary Table 3. Simple and complex t-test results were switched.
- •p. 14, Results, Supplementary Figure 3. Simple and complex line and bar plot labels were switched. In the figure legend, simple and complex were switched in the sentence “PSR for simple stimuli were on average larger than for complex stimuli, but this was not different for the two groups or between CS+ and CS−.”
- •p. 15, Results, Supplementary Table 5. Simple and complex results were switched for t-tests for PSR and SCR (ANOVA results remain the same).
- •p. 17, Results, Supplementary Figure 4. Simple and complex line and bar plot labels were switched. In the figure legend, simple and complex were switched in the sentence “Experimental group explicitly learned the CS+/CS− difference for simple but not for complex stimuli.”
- •p. 18, Results, Accuracy and reaction time of CS identification. Simple and complex were switched for results descriptions, and reaction time numbers in parentheses were also switched accordingly. Slightly amended the last sentence: “Importantly, this cannot be explained by physical properties or timing of the stimuli, as simple stimuli were immediately distinguishable from the first pulse, and therefore attentional or other psychological factors seem the most reasonable explanation for the difference (e.g., complex stimuli engaged more processing resources than simple stimuli).” where “complex stimuli engaged more attention than simple stimuli” was changed to “engaged more processing resources than simple stimuli.”
- •p. 19, Results, Supplementary Figure 5. Simple and complex line and bar plot labels were switched. In the figure legend, simple and complex were switched in sentences “Participants were on average more accurate on complex than on simple CS trials” and “Participants were on average faster to respond to complex than simple CS. There were no significant differences between groups nor CS+/CS− in either accuracy or reaction times.”
Supplement 2: This file was replaced, with the following updates made:
- •Coding was switched for all data regarding complexity so that the data now correctly follows the coding legend provided on the first spreadsheet.
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Published online: November 26, 2022
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- Inhibiting Human Aversive Memory by Transcranial Theta-Burst Stimulation to the Primary Sensory CortexBiological PsychiatryVol. 92Issue 2
- PreviewPredicting adverse events from past experience is fundamental for many biological organisms. However, some individuals suffer from maladaptive memories that impair behavioral control and well-being, e.g., after psychological trauma. Inhibiting the formation and maintenance of such memories would have high clinical relevance. Previous preclinical research has focused on systemically administered pharmacological interventions, which cannot be targeted to specific neural circuits in humans. Here, we investigated the potential of noninvasive neural stimulation on the human sensory cortex in inhibiting aversive memory in a laboratory threat conditioning model.
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