Cognitive, Behavioral and Systems NeuroscienceResearch PaperThe influence of gonadal hormones on conditioned fear extinction in healthy humans
Section snippets
Participants
Fifty-four participants (36 women, 18 men) ages 18–30 were recruited from the local community via advertisement. Women were divided by hormonal levels into two groups of 18 (see below). All participants were right-handed, without endocrinologic, neurologic, or other medical conditions, and without Axis I mental disorders, including substance dependence or abuse, as determined by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (First et al., 2002). No participant was using psychoactive or other
Demographics, personality measures, and baseline physiological measures
Men and women did not differ in age or years of education. Men exhibited higher mean baseline SCL, higher mean unconditioned SCR to the US, and higher mean shock level selection. Men scored lower on the NEO-FFI Agreeableness survey than women (for full statistics, see (Suppl. Table 1).
Comparisons between the low-estradiol (LE, n=18, mean 57.5±5.7 pg/mL; median split 112 pg/mL) and high-estradiol (HE, n=18, mean 256.7+34.4 pg/mL) female groups revealed no differences in age, years of education,
Discussion
We examined the influence of natural fluctuations of gonadal hormones on the acquisition, extinction learning, and extinction recall of conditioned fear in women. Estradiol levels did not affect the acquisition or extinction of conditioned fear but facilitated extinction memory recall. These results suggest a possible role of estradiol in the consolidation of extinction memories. With regard to sex differences, when gonadal hormones were not considered, sex differences were observed during the
Acknowledgments
The work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (K01MH080346) to M.R.M. The project described was also supported by Grant 1UL1 RR025758-01, Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center from the National Center for Research Resources, and ORWH-NIMHP50 MH082679 (JMG, P.I.) for JMG's time. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Center for Research Resources or the National
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Dr. Scott Rauch has received honoraria and/or consultation fees from Neurogen, Sepracor, Novartis and Medtronic. He has also participated in research funded by Medtronic, Cyberonics, Cephalon and Northstar. The remaining authors have no conflicts of interest to report.