Altered Fear Extinction Recall and Renewal in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Neuroimaging Support for the Contextual Processing Hypothesis

Prior work suggests that individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) display abnormal activity in fear learning and contextual processing regions during extinction recall and fear renewal compared to healthy controls (HC). Here, we aimed to replicate and extend this work. One hundred and forty-six participants (n_PTSD=62, n_HC=84) completed a fear learning paradigm with extinction recall and fear renewal phases inside an fMRI scanner. CS+ trials were contrasted with CS- trials. Results from a regression found higher symptom severity predicted greater activation in regions associated with fear learning and attention during run 1 of extinction recall. Moreover, results from two-sample t-tests suggested HCs displayed greater activations in threat and fear learning regions during run 1 of fear renewal compared to PTSD participants. Our findings suggest PTSD participants display impaired recall of safety and danger contexts, supporting the notion that PTSD may be underlined by contextual processing deficits.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Clinical Psychology

Grantor

Texas A&M University

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Becker, Claudia R.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• MacNamara, Annmarie

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Albanese, Brian

• Psychology, Clinical

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/1600799

OAI record oai:identifier

https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/server/oai/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=dim&identifier=oai%3Aoaktrust.library.tamu.edu%3A1969.1%2F1600799