Medial anterior prefrontal cortex stimulation downregulates implicit reactions to threats and prevents the return of fear.
Elife
; 132024 Jun 24.
Article
de En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38913410
ABSTRACT
Downregulating emotional overreactions toward threats is fundamental for developing treatments for anxiety and post-traumatic disorders. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is critical for top-down modulatory processes, and despite previous studies adopting repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over this region provided encouraging results in enhancing extinction, no studies have hitherto explored the effects of stimulating the medial anterior PFC (aPFC, encompassing the Brodmann area 10) on threat memory and generalization. Here we showed that rTMS over the aPFC applied before threat memory retrieval immediately decreases implicit reactions to learned and novel stimuli in humans. These effects enduringly persisted 1 week later in the absence of rTMS. No effects were detected on explicit recognition. Critically, rTMS over the aPFC resulted in a more pronounced reduction of defensive responses compared to rTMS targeting the dorsolateral PFC. These findings reveal a previously unexplored prefrontal region, the modulation of which can efficiently and durably inhibit implicit reactions to learned threats. This represents a significant advancement toward the long-term deactivation of exaggerated responses to threats.
Mots clés
Texte intégral:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Base de données:
MEDLINE
Sujet principal:
Cortex préfrontal
/
Stimulation magnétique transcrânienne
/
Peur
Limites:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Langue:
En
Journal:
Elife
/
ELife (Cambridge)
Année:
2024
Type de document:
Article
Pays d'affiliation:
Italie
Pays de publication:
Royaume-Uni