SCR responses to conditioned stimuli in two groups of study 1.

a, Experimental design and timeline. b, Mean SCRs of fear conditioned stimuli (CS+) and the control stimulus (CS−) across fear acquisition, extinction and test phases for two groups (reminder and no-reminder). c, Mean differential SCRs (CS+ minus CS−) in the acquisition phase (latter half trials). d, Mean differential SCRs (CS+ minus CS−) in the extinction phase (last trial). e, Differntial fear recovery index between CS+ and CS− in the test phase. ***P < 0.001, *P < 0.05. NS: Non-significant. Error bars represent standard errors.

SCR responses to conditioned stimuli in three groups of study 2.

a, Experimental design and timeline. b, Mean SCRs of fear conditioned stimuli CS1+ (reminder) and CS2+ (No-reminder), and the control stimulus (CS−) across the fear acquisition, extinction and test phases for each group (30min, 6h and 24h tests). c, Mean differential SCRs (CS1+ minus CS− and CS2+ minus CS−) in the acquisition phase (latter half trials). c, Mean differential SCRs in the acquisition phase (latter half trials). d, Mean differential SCRs in the extinction phase (last trial). e, Differntial fear recovery index between CS+ and CS− in the test phase. ***P < 0.001. *P < 0.05. NS: Non-significant. Error bars represent standard errors.

Fear recovery as a function of thought-control abilities.

(a)Thought control ability was significantly correlated with fear recovery index in the 30min group (P = 0.003, Bonferroni correction), but not in the 6 hour (b) or 24 hour group (c, Ps > 0.7). The violin graphs indicate the distribution of fear recovery index across subjects (Fig. 2e). **P < 0.01. NS: Non-significant.

SCR responses to conditioned stimuli in four cTBS groups.

a, Experimental design and timeline. b, Mean SCRs of fear conditioned stimuli CS1+ (reminder) and CS2+ (No-reminder), and the control stimulus (CS−) across the fear acquisition, extinction and test phases for each group (R - PFC, R-VER, NR-PFC and NR-VER groups). c, Mean differential SCRs (CS1+ minus CS− and CS2+ minus CS−) in the acquisition phase (latter half trials). d, Mean differential SCRs in the extinction phase (last trial). e, Differntial fear recovery index between CS+ and CS− in the test phase. ***P < 0.001. *P < 0.05. NS: Non-significant. Error bars represent standard errors.

The correlation between fear recovery index and thought-control abilities in four cTBS groups.

In the R-VER group,the correlation between thought control ability scores and fear recovery index was significant (P = 0.008, Bonferroni correction), with high thought-control ability participants showing less fear recovery for both CS+; whereas there was no significant correlation between fear recovery index and thought-control abilities in other three groups (Ps > 0.4, R-PFC, NR-PFC and NR-VER groups). ** P < 0.01, NS: Non-significant.

Time courses of fear memory suppression and reconsolidation.

a, At the short interval (30min to 1h), fear recovery of the reminded CS (CS1+) is inhibited (green). As time progresses (from 6h to 24h), amnesia effect is mainly due to the later emerged fear memory reconsolidation effect (orange). The actual SCR data in black solid line. b, Fear memory suppression of the non-reminded CS (CS2+) is only evident at the 30-min interval and such effect starts to decay as test interval increases (green). However, fear reconsolidation does not affect CS2+ due to the cue-specificity of the reconsolidation effect (orange). The observed SCR data (black solid line) paralleled the prediction from both the short-term and the reconsolidation effects as the interval length increased (from 30min to 24h). c, Schematics demonstrating the effect of cue-reminder on fear memory retention. After both CS1+ (black) and CS2+ (grey) successfully elicit fear responses in the acquisition phase, CS1+ is reminded (black) before both CS+ go through the extinction training. The lack of both CS1+ and CS2+ fear responses in the short-term memory (STM) test (30 min) can be explained by the dlPFC dependent direct suppression effect (dotted circle of US representation). However, the cue-specific fear amnesia effect in the long-term memory (LTM) test (24h) of CS1+ but not CS2+ is attributed to the reconsolidation effect specific to CS1+. * P < 0.05, Error bars represent standard errors.