Robust group- but limited individual-level (longitudinal) reliability and insights into cross-phases response prediction of conditioned fear
- University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany
- Harvard Medical School, United States
Abstract
Here we follow the call to target measurement reliability as a key prerequisite for individual-level predictions in translational neuroscience by investigating i) longitudinal reliability at the individual and ii) group level, iii) internal consistency and iv) response predictability across experimental phases. 120 individuals performed a fear conditioning paradigm twice six months apart. Analyses of skin conductance responses, fear ratings and BOLD-fMRI with different data transformations and included numbers of trials were conducted. While longitudinal reliability was rather limited at the individual level, it was comparatively higher for acquisition but not extinction at the group-level. Internal consistency was satisfactory. Higher responding in preceding phases predicted higher responding in subsequent experimental phases at a weak to moderate level depending on data specifications. In sum, the results suggest that while individual-level predictions are meaningful for (very) short time frames, they also call for more attention to measurement properties in the field.
Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study and the R Markdown files that generate this manuscript are openly available in Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6359920.
Article and author information
Author details
Maren Klingelhöfer-Jens
Funding
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (INST 211/633-2)
- Tina B Lonsdorf
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (LO 1980/4-1)
- Tina B Lonsdorf
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (LO 1980/7-1)
- Tina B Lonsdorf
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: All participants gave written informed consent to the protocol which was approved by the local ethics committee (PV 5157, Ethics Committee of the General Medical Council Hamburg). The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Copyright
© 2022, Klingelhöfer-Jens et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 879
- views
-
- 156
- downloads
-
- 13
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Robust group- but limited individual-level (longitudinal) reliability and insights into cross-phases response prediction of conditioned fear
eLife 11:e78717.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78717
Further reading
-
- Neuroscience
Aphantasia refers to reduced or absent visual imagery. While most of us can readily recall decade-old personal experiences (autobiographical memories, AM) with vivid mental images, there is a dearth of information about whether the loss of visual imagery in aphantasics affects their AM retrieval. The hippocampus is thought to be a crucial hub in a brain-wide network underlying AM. One important question is whether this network, especially the connectivity of the hippocampus, is altered in aphantasia. In the current study, we tested 14 congenital aphantasics and 16 demographically matched controls in an AM fMRI task to investigate how key brain regions (i.e. hippocampus and visual-perceptual cortices) interact with each other during AM re-experiencing. All participants were interviewed regarding their autobiographical memory to examine their episodic and semantic recall of specific events. Aphantasics reported more difficulties in recalling AM, were less confident about their memories, and described less internal and emotional details than controls. Neurally, aphantasics displayed decreased hippocampal and increased visual-perceptual cortex activation during AM retrieval compared to controls. In addition, controls showed strong negative functional connectivity between the hippocampus and the visual cortex during AM and resting-state functional connectivity between these two brain structures predicted better visualization skills. Our results indicate that visual mental imagery plays an important role in detail-rich vivid AM, and that this type of cognitive function is supported by the functional connection between the hippocampus and the visual-perceptual cortex.
-
- Neuroscience
- Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
A tailored cocktail of genes can reprogram a subset of progenitors to no longer produce glial cells and instead develop into neurons involved in motor control.
