ArticlePsychophysiology2022
Characterizing cardiac autonomic dynamics of fear learning in humans.
Article in Psychophysiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers.
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed.
- Attentional processing in individual anxiety: Electrocortical correlates of threat- and safety-related declarative memory formation.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Emotion Formation in Old Age-The Result of a Top-Down Positive Strategy, General Habituation or a Bottom-Up Decreased Interoception?Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Are you afraid? Neurophysiological responses to multidimensional fear in an interactive semi-immersive environment.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2026Article
- Heart rate response and recovery during exercise and dementia risk: a prospective UK biobank study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- SpiderPhy dataset: A multimodal dataset of Physiological, Psychometric and Behavioral Responses to fear stimuli.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Bodily illusion enhances subjective fear of safety-margin violations surrounding the bodily self.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cortisol Imbalance and Fear Learning in PTSD: Therapeutic Approaches to Control Abnormal Fear Responses.Current neuropharmacology · 2025Review
- Revolutionizing our understanding of Parkinson's disease: Dr. Heinz Reichmann's pioneering research and future research direction.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2024Review
- Neuropsychobiology of fear-induced bradycardia in humans: progress and pitfalls.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- Physiotherapy for patients with depression: Recent research progress.World journal of psychiatry · 2024Review
- Neurological and metabolic related pathophysiologies and treatment of comorbid diabetes with depression.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2024Review
- Neural Correlates and Molecular Mechanisms of Memory and Learning.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Genetic differences associated with dopamine and serotonin release mediate fear-induced bradycardia in the human brain.Translational psychiatry · 2024Review
- Targeting Human Glucocorticoid Receptors in Fear Learning: A Multiscale Integrated Approach to Study Functional Connectivity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- The Role of Serotonin in Fear Learning and Memory: A Systematic Review of Human Studies.Brain sciences · 2023Review
- Article
- Functional near-infrared spectroscopy in elderly patients with four types of dementia.World journal of psychiatry · 2023Article
- Analysis of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia and Directed Information Flow between Brain and Body Indicate Different Management Strategies of fMRI-Related Anxiety.Biomedicines · 2023Article
- Neuropharmacological Modulation of N-methyl-D-aspartate, Noradrenaline and Endocannabinoid Receptors in Fear Extinction Learning: Synaptic Transmission and Plasticity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- The Tryptophan-Kynurenine Metabolic System Is Suppressed in Cuprizone-Induced Model of Demyelination Simulating Progressive Multiple Sclerosis.Biomedicines · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding transient dynamics of the autonomic nervous system during fear learning remains a critical step to translate basic research into treatment of fear-related disorders. In humans, it has been demonstrated that fear learning typically elicits transient heart rate deceleration. However, classical analyses of heart rate variability (HRV) fail to disentangle the contribution of parasympathetic and sympathetic systems, and crucially, they are not able to capture phasic changes during fear learning. Here, to gain deeper insight into the physiological underpinnings of fear learning, a novel frequency-domain analysis of heart rate was performed using a short-time Fourier transform, and instantaneous spectral estimates extracted from a point-process modeling algorithm. We tested whether spectral transient components of HRV, used as a noninvasive probe of sympathetic and parasympathetic mechanisms, can dissociate between fear conditioned and neutral stimuli. We found that learned fear elicited a transient heart rate deceleration in anticipation of noxious stimuli. Crucially, results revealed a significant increase in spectral power in the high frequency band when facing the conditioned stimulus, indicating increased parasympathetic (vagal) activity, which distinguished conditioned and neutral stimuli during fear learning. Our findings provide a proximal measure of the involvement of cardiac vagal dynamics into the psychophysiology of fear learning and extinction, thus offering new insights for the characterization of fear in mental health and illness.
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