Causally mapping human threat extinction relevant circuits with depolarizing brain stimulation methods

• Authors: Ryan D Webler, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Desmond J Oathes, University of Pennsylvania; Sanne van Rooij, Emory University; Jonathan C Gewirtz, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Ziad Nahas, Arizona State University-Tempe; Shmuel M Lissek, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Alik S Widge, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
• Journal Title: NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOBEHAVIORAL REVIEWS
• Volume: Volume 144
• Publisher: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | 2022-12-21, Pages 105005-105005
• Type of Work: Article | Post-print: After Peer Review
• Publisher DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.105005
• Subjects: Health Sciences, Mental Health
• Keywords: Science & Technology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Behavioral Sciences; Neurosciences; Neurosciences & Neurology; Threat extinction; Threat reconsolidation; Clinical anxiety; Brain stimulation; Transcranial magnetic stimulation; Deep brain stimulation; TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION; OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER; POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER; THETA-BURST STIMULATION; MEDIAL FRONTAL-CORTEX; STATE-DEPENDENT TMS; FEAR EXTINCTION; PREFRONTAL CORTEX; ELECTRICAL-STIMULATION; CONJUNCTIVE REPRESENTATIONS

Abstract

Laboratory threat extinction paradigms and exposure-based therapy both involve repeated, safe confrontation with stimuli previously experienced as threatening. This fundamental procedural overlap supports laboratory threat extinction as a compelling analogue of exposure-based therapy. Threat extinction impairments have been detected in clinical anxiety and may contribute to exposure-based therapy non-response and relapse. However, efforts to improve exposure outcomes using techniques that boost extinction – primarily rodent extinction – have largely failed to date, potentially due to fundamental differences between rodent and human neurobiology. In this review, we articulate a comprehensive pre-clinical human research agenda designed to overcome these failures. We describe how connectivity guided depolarizing brain stimulation methods (i.e., TMS and DBS) can be applied concurrently with threat extinction and dual threat reconsolidation-extinction paradigms to causally map human extinction relevant circuits and inform the optimal integration of these methods with exposure-based therapy. We highlight candidate targets including the amygdala, hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and mesolimbic structures, and propose hypotheses about how stimulation delivered at specific learning phases could strengthen threat extinction.