Maren et al. 2013 Flashcards
Give four examples of ‘context’. Name some of the features of context.
Internal, including cognitive and hormonal (interoceptive). External, including environmental (spatial) and social. Contexts are typically multisensory, diffuse, continuously present and encoded without awareness.
What is the role of the hippocampus in context encoding? What kind of deficit appear in hippocampal damage related to context related memory?
The hippocampus plays a role in episodic memory and spatial orientation and is in this way related to learning and remembering contexts. After hippocampal damage, context conditioning is impaired but still possible, indicating that the hippocampus is mainly necessary for context encoding and less for conditioning.
Which kind of contexts are related to the hippocampus?
Spatial and interoceptive context.
What is the role of the amygdala in context conditioning?
The amygdala is critical for encoding, storing and retrieving context-stimulus associations and is therefore essential for context conditioning.
In conditioning, what is the main difference between the amygdala and the hippocampus?
The hippocampus is involved in context conditioning, while the amygdala is involved in fear conditioning.
Referring to psychotherapy, what is the challenge with extinction in fear conditioning?
Renewal can occur, thus fear can return in other contexts as well. Moreover, after extinction, fear responses becomes more context-dependent which makes generalisation of fear reduction harder.
Which brain area is particularly involved in extinction in fear conditioning?
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
Related to extinction, what are the findings regarding PTSD patients?
Studies indicate that PTSD patients show deficits in fear extinction, associated with reduced activity in the vmPFC.
