7 November 2002
The brain: Forgetting is the new learning
Once learned, a conditioned response need not be permanent. The term extinction is used to describe the elimination of a conditioned response by repeatedly presenting the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus. Work involving auditory fear conditioning in rats now provides experimental support for the hypothesis first put forward by Pavlov in 1927, that extinction is 'new learning' rather than a process of reversal. The brain structure involved in this process is the medial prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that stimulation of this area of the brain could be useful as part of a therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Neurons in medial prefrontal cortex signal memory
for fear extinction
MOHAMMED R. MILAD & GREGORY J. QUIRK
Nature 420, 70–74 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature01138
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