FOR 1581: Extinction Learning: Behavioural, Neural and Clinical Mechanisms

我们可以学习新的信息，并随后能够记住它。然而，我们同样能够了解到，一旦获得的信息不再有效，并停止对它作出反应。虽然人们对获取新知识的最初过程进行了很好的研究，但对灭绝的过程却知之甚少。已知灭绝涉及一个新的学习过程，这个过程与CS-US-association的初始习得不同，也更复杂。消失的反应不会消失，但可以在诸如上下文变化或更新范式等操作后返回。在我们研究部门的范围内，我们计划探索包括人类在内的各种物种灭绝的神经，行为和临床机制。我们在系统和技术层面的方法的多样性将与概念、实验、结构和技术层面的高度一致性相结合：在实验设计层面，研究单位的所有参与者都将在他们的实验中使用更新方法。这将使我们能够研究上下文线索的作用，并分析从啮齿动物到人类通过单一程序进行灭绝学习的共同特征。在结构层面上，所有的神经生物学和大多数临床小组都将至少一部分的实验集中在前额皮质、海马体和杏仁核上，因为之前的研究已经确定这些区域对灭绝学习至关重要。所有以人类为研究对象的研究都将在至少一部分实验中采用类似的预测学习任务。在神经化学水平上，我们计划在几个项目中研究在灭绝学习过程中重叠的递质和受体系统。利用这一策略，我们打算深入了解不同系统和生物体中常见和独特的灭绝学习机制。我们相信这种方法是最有希望在基础科学和临床科学之间实现转化见解的方法。

We can learn new information and are subsequently able to remember it. However, we are equally able to learn that once acquired information is no longer valid and cease to respond to it. While the initial process of acquisition of new knowledge is well studied, the process of extinction is far less understood. Extinction is known to involve a new learning process that is different and more complex than the initial acquisition of the CS-US-association. Extinguished responses do not disappear but can return following manipulations such as a change in context as in renewal paradigms. Within the scope of our Research Unit, we plan to explore the neural, the behavioural and the clinical mechanisms of extinction in various species, including humans. The diversity of our approaches at the systems and at the technical level will be combined with a high level of uniformity at conceptual, experimental, structural and technical levels: At the experimental design level, all participants within the Research Unit will utilise the renewal approach in their experiments. This will enable us to study the role of contextual cues and to analyse the common signatures of extinction learning from rodents to men with a single procedure. At the structural level, all neurobiological and most clinical groups will concentrate in at least a part of their experiments on the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus and the amygdala, since previous studies had identified these areas to be critical for extinction learning. All studies with human subjects will employ comparable predictive learning tasks in at least a part of their experiments. At the neurochemical level, we plan to study overlapping transmitter- und receptor-systems during extinction learning in several projects. Using this strategy, we intend to harvest deep insights into both the common and the distinct mechanisms of extinction learning in different systems and organisms. We believe that such an approach is the most promising one to achieve translational insights between basic and clinical science.