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Fear and labyrinths: Do behavioural tagging mechanisms strengthen context conditioned fear? A virtual reality study.
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology.
2022 (English)Student paper other, 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

It is believed that the formation of memories functions via activity-dependent plasticity. Long term potentiation (LTP) is the most accepted model for how plastic changes occur in neural networks. The synaptic tag and capture (STC) hypothesis proposes that LTP occurs in two steps resulting from synaptic stimulation, the setting of a synaptic tag and the synthesis of plasticity-related proteins (PRPs) that the tag then captures. Weak stimulation cannot produce PRPs by itself but can use PRPs that have resulted from stong stimulation for its own LTP. Recently the behavioural tagging (BT) hypothesis has suggested that STC underlies long-term memory formation. Studies have shown that one experience can provide PRPs to help another experience be committed to long-term memory. In animals this has been tested for various types of memories including fear conditioning. Our study aimed to see if presumed PRP synthesis from navigating a labyrinth in virtual reality (VR) could improve the consolidation of memories from a context fear conditioning procedure. Participants were randomised into a VR exploration group and a control group before undergoing a fear conditioning procedure in VR. One day later the participants underwent a reinstatement procedure and the difference in return of fear between groups was compared. Results show that neither acquisition of a conditioned fear response or a difference in return of fear between groups was statistically significant. The small sample size (N=11) must be considered, and results indicate the larger project (N=60) that this study is a part of may find significant results. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2022.
Keywords [en]
Behavioural tagging, memories, virtual reality, VT, fear conditioning, reinstatement
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-498851OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-498851DiVA, id: diva2:1744748
Subject / course
Psychology
Educational program
Freestanding course
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2023-03-20 Created: 2023-03-20 Last updated: 2023-03-20Bibliographically approved

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