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Extinction is a process that diminishes the memory of a learned behaviour. This may occur by unlearning the original memory association that produces the behaviour or by learning a new association that inhibits it.
Using intracranial EEG recordings in epilepsy patients, Pacheco-Estefan et al. describe changes in the neural representations of cues and contexts during fear and extinction learning in the human brain.
The nucleus reuniens encodes associative value in both humans and rats. In rats, it also tracks defensive freezing states. The reuniens has a conserved role across species in modulating emotional memory processes and defensive states.
Fear is actively maintained in balance in mice by the insular cortex, which gates extinction learning according to an animal’s fear level using interoceptive signals related to fear expression that are sent to the brain via the vagus nerve.
