Neurobioloigcal mechanisms of Social Return of Fear

创伤性应激和焦虑症治疗的一个挑战是心理治疗后经常观察到复发。复发是指在最初治疗成功后恐惧性ROF的复发，可由暴露于意想不到的压力源（恢复）等因素触发。虽然恢复是研究焦虑相关障碍治疗后复发的一种广泛使用的模型，但它已在啮齿动物和人类中被描述为专门使用直接经历的厌恶事件。然而，许多恐惧和创伤是通过社会传播获得的，包含社会信息，并可能在社会环境中恢复。本项目旨在探讨社会对ROF的影响，采用一种新的实验范式，使用社会传播的压力源（在没有实际疼痛感觉的情况下观察到他人的疼痛）来恢复恐惧反应。这种社会恢复使研究焦虑相关障碍复发时的生态有效社会领域成为可能，从而扩展了已建立的ROF模型，包括研究1a)外周神经反应（皮肤电导反应，恐惧增强惊吓）和1b)大脑反应（fMRI），以描述社会ROF的神经生物学机制。翻译合作将允许这种范式转移到啮齿动物。此外，对社会传递性恐惧的首次神经心理药理学检查将使我们能够描绘出社会传递性恐惧的潜在传递系统的新见解。该项目的主要目标是将社会情感学习与记忆形成和检索机制的研究联系起来，由卡罗林斯卡学院的Andreas Olsson博士的研究小组主持。这将使我们更好地理解社会传播的恐惧和社会ROF，从而可以开发更有效的治疗创伤性应激障碍和焦虑症的方法，以防止长期复发。

A challenge in the treatment of Traumatic Stress and Anxiety disorders is the frequently observed relapse after psychological treatment. Relapse constitutes the return of fear ROF after an initially successful treatment, and can be triggered by, for example, exposure to unexpected stressor (reinstatement).Although reinstatement is a widely used model for studying the relapse after treatment of anxiety related disorders, it has been described in rodents and humans by using directly experienced aversive events exclusively. However, many fears and traumas are acquired through social transmission, contain social information, and might recover in social contexts.This project aims to investigate the social influence on ROF employing a novel experimental paradigm using a socially transmitted stressor (pain observed in others without the actual sensation of pain) to reinstate fear responses. This social reinstatement enables the investigation of the ecological valid social domain in relapse in anxiety related disorders, thus extending established models of ROF. This endeavor includes the investigation of 1a) peripheral nervous responses (skin conductance responses, fear potentiated startle) as well as 1b) brain responses (fMRI) to delineate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying social ROF. Moreover, a translational cooperation will allow a transfer of this paradigm to rodents. In addition, 2) the first neuropsychopharmacological examination of social transmitted fear will enable us to delineate novel insights in the underlying transmitter system of socially transmitted fear. The main goal of this project, with the research group of Dr. Andreas Olsson at the Karolinska Institutet as the hosting institution, is to bridge research on social affective learning with mechanisms of memory formation and retrieval. This will enable a better understanding of social transmitted fear and social ROF, which can lead to the development of more effective treatment of Traumatic Stress and Anxiety disorders to prevent relapse in the long run.