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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Extinction Training During the Reconsolidation Window Prevents Recovery of Fear
Published on: August 24, 2012
Conditioned fear extinction and reinstatement in a human fear-potentiated startle paradigm
Seth D Norrholm1, Tanja Jovanovic, Bram Vervliet
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. Seth.Norrholm@va.gov
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to analyze fear extinction and reinstatement in humans using fear-potentiated startle. Participants were fear conditioned using a simple discrimination procedure with colored lights as the conditioned stimuli (CSs) and an airblast to the throat as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Participants were extinguished 24 h after fear conditioning. Upon presentation of unsignaled USs after extinction, participants displayed significant fear reinstatement. In summary, these procedures produced robust fear-potentiated startle, significant CS+/CS- discrimination, within-session extinction, and significant reinstatement. This is the first demonstration of fear extinction and reinstatement in humans using startle measures.
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