PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Raffael Kalisch
AU  - Elian Korenfeld
AU  - Klaas E. Stephan
AU  - Nikolaus Weiskopf
AU  - Ben Seymour
AU  - Raymond J. Dolan
TI  - Context-Dependent Human Extinction Memory Is Mediated by a Ventromedial Prefrontal and Hippocampal Network
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2021-06.2006
DP  - 2006 Sep 13
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 9503--9511
VI  - 26
IP  - 37
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/26/37/9503.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/26/37/9503.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2006 Sep 13; 26
AB  - In fear extinction, an animal learns that a conditioned stimulus (CS) no longer predicts a noxious stimulus [unconditioned stimulus (UCS)] to which it had previously been associated, leading to inhibition of the conditioned response (CR). Extinction creates a new CS–noUCS memory trace, competing with the initial fear (CS–UCS) memory. Recall of extinction memory and, hence, CR inhibition at later CS encounters is facilitated by contextual stimuli present during extinction training. In line with theoretical predictions derived from animal studies, we show that, after extinction, a CS-evoked engagement of human ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and hippocampus is context dependent, being expressed in an extinction, but not a conditioning, context. Likewise, a positive correlation between VMPFC and hippocampal activity is extinction context dependent. Thus, a VMPFC–hippocampal network provides for context-dependent recall of human extinction memory, consistent with a view that hippocampus confers context dependence on VMPFC.