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Neural pattern similarity predicts long-term fear memory

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Abstract

Although certain changes in the brain may reflect fear learning, there are no known markers that indicate whether an aversive experience will develop into fear memory. We examined the moment-to-moment dynamics of human fear learning by applying multi-voxel pattern analysis to single-trial blood oxygen level–dependent magnetic resonance imaging data. We found that the long-term behavioral expression of fear memory could be predicted from neural patterns at the time of learning.

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Figure 1: A 42 × 42 correlation matrix containing within-stimulus and between-stimulus correlations of BOLD MRI patterns in the SFG during the learning phase (n = 38).
Figure 2: Neural pattern similarity versus average activation during different experimental phases.
Figure 3: Pupil dilation and neural pattern similarity split by long-term procedural fear memory.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Wijnen and M. Spaan for technical assistance. This work was supported by a Vici grant (M.K.) from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Renée M Visser & Merel Kindt

  2. Cognitive Science Center Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Renée M Visser, H Steven Scholte & Merel Kindt

  3. Department of Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    H Steven Scholte & Tinka Beemsterboer

Authors
  1. Renée M Visser
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  2. H Steven Scholte
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  3. Tinka Beemsterboer
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  4. Merel Kindt
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Contributions

R.M.V., H.S.S. and M.K. designed the research. R.M.V. and T.B. performed the research and analyzed the data. H.S.S. contributed new analytic tools. H.S.S. and M.K. supervised the project. R.M.V. and M.K. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Merel Kindt.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–8 and Supplementary Tables 1–12 (PDF 977 kb)

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Visser, R., Scholte, H., Beemsterboer, T. et al. Neural pattern similarity predicts long-term fear memory. Nat Neurosci 16, 388–390 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3345

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3345

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