conditioned fear response

Pathology

• behavior modification in which a subject is conditioned (generally inadvertantly) to respond with fear to a previously neutral stimulus
• process involves the amygdala via its connections to the medial prefrontal cortex
• oxytocin enhances fear extinction by upregulating the medial prefrontal cortex inhibition of fear responses in the amygdala
• the conditioned fear response may play a role in PTSD

More general terms

• associative memory/learning (conditioning)

Additional terms

• classical conditioning