Author(s)

Óscar Andión, Xavier Caseras, Miquel Àngel Fullana, Alberto Fernandez-Teruel, Marc Ferrer, Miquel Casas, Rafael Torrubia

Departament de Psiquiatria i Medicina Legal, Institut de Neurociencies, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
Department of Psychological Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
Servei de Psiquiatria, Hospital Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona, Spain.

No study so far has specifically addressed the influence of individual differences in trait-anxiety on aversive classical conditioning as indexed by the startle reflex response. We compared the startle reflex responses between participants classified as high (n = 25) and low (n = 26) in trait-anxiety while undergoing a single-cue aversive classical conditioning procedure. High trait-anxiety group showed a greater startle response to the CS relative to the ITI at the post-acquisition compared with the pre-acquisition phase. Low trait-anxiety group did not show such a clear pattern of conditioning, and results from this group seem to be concealed by differences in the startle responses to the CS and the ITI during the pre-acquisition phase. However, a post-hoc analysis in which such differences at pre-conditioning were removed showed no conditioning effects in low trait-anxiety participants. Taking together, these results suggest differences between high and low trait-anxiety groups in the acquisition of the CS-US association. However, further research should clarify the unexpected pattern of responses shown by low trait-anxiety group.

Classical Conditioning; Startle Reflex; Trait-Anxiety; Cued Conditioning; Fear-Potentiated Startle

Andión, Ó. , Caseras, X. , Fullana, M. , Fernandez-Teruel, A. , Ferrer, M. , Casas, M. and Torrubia, R. (2013) Cued aversive classical conditioning in humans: The role of trait-anxiety. Open Journal of Psychiatry, 3, 230-237. doi: 10.4236/ojpsych.2013.32021.