恐惧学习的发展认知神经机制研究回顾与展望

Neurobehavioral Perspectives on the Developmental of Fear Learning

恐惧可以帮助个体快速地评估危险情景,并调动生理和行为反应来应对危险刺激。恐惧发展始于婴儿时期,神经回路表现为杏仁核未参与恐惧反应,但杏仁核功能连接可以预测早期恐惧反应;发展到童年期的恐惧学习特点为安全学习不足和过度泛化,其根源是负责辨别刺激的海马还处于发育中;进入青春期恐惧加工主要特征是由于前额叶发育较晚导致的消退能力弱。恐惧虽有益于人类生存,但恐惧异常会引发焦虑障碍,本文从恐惧的习得、消退和泛化三个阶段,对比了焦虑与健康青少年的恐惧学习差异。最后,文章从增加婴儿时期研究、创新青少年恐惧研究范式和开发安全有效的干预手段三个方面对未来研究提出展望,以期进一步推动恐惧研究的发展。

Fear can help individuals defend against threatening situations.Studies demonstrate that fear develops in infancy,but amygdala-dependent fear learning does not occur in this period.Whereas,amygdala functional connectivity can predict the early fear response.Fear in childhood is characterized by deficit in safety learning and over-generalization,which are consistent with a slowly developing hippocampal learning system that leads to a dissociation between old and new stimuli.Adolescents exhibit impairing fear extinction due to the late maturation of the prefrontal cortex(PFC).Although fear is essential for survival,its impairment is a hallmark of psychiatric disorders including anxiety disorder.We review the existing evidence for the abnormal acquisition,extinction and generalization in adolescents with anxiety disorders.Finally,we provide an updated view for future research including increasing research on developmental populations especially in infantcy,innovating fear research paradigm which is more suitable for adolescents and developing safe and effective interventions to further promote our understanding of anxiety disorders in adolescents.