Working to eliminate the extinction of human fear
Anxiety disorders are the most common category of mental health disorders – affecting14% of Australian adults and 7% of Australian children and adolescents. The current project is aimed at improving the outcomes for exposure therapy – the gold standard treatment for anxiety disorders that have been shown to be very effective, however, the majority of people with an anxiety disorder who are treated successfully with exposure therapy will relapse.
Recent research in our laboratories has identified three promising interventions that can reduce relapse of conditioned fear:
1. novelty-facilitated extinction training,
2. presentation of additional USs during extinction and
3. extinction with additional stimuli that are conceptually/perceptually related to the conditioned stimuli.
About the project
This project will divide and replicate experiments between Griffith University and Curtin University looking at these three streams of interventions using analogue experimentation with human participants that have a solid theoretical base yet will produce outcomes that are immediately relevant to the target population. The fourth stream of this research project is to integrate evidence from the three previous streams, combining interventions depending on the outcomes. The final stage is to organise a small group meeting of stakeholders, researchers, clinicians and consumers and discuss the outcomes of the current research with the aim to review the clinical practice of exposure-based treatments. The expected outcome is to develop a set of recommendations regarding how to optimise exposure based clinical interventions.
Research team
Professor Allison Waters is proud to team with Professor Ottmar Lipp and Dr Camilla Luck from Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, as well Professor Michelle Craske from University of California in Los Angeles, USA. This team have extensive experience conducting laboratory-based human fear conditioning research with the measurement of psychophysiological responses. They have received a grant from the NHMRC to conduct this research project over the course of three years.
Publications
Loerinc, A. G., Meuret, A. E., Twohig, M. P., Rosenfield, D., Bluett, E. J. & Craske, M. G. (2015). Response rates for CBT for anxiety disorders: Need for standardized criteria. Clinical Psychology Review, 42, 72-82.
Vervliet, B., Craske, M. G. & Hermans, D. (2013). Fear Extinction and Relapse: State of the Art. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 9, 215-248.
Lipp, O. V. (2006). Human fear learning: contemporary procedures and measurement. In M. G. Craske, D. Hermans, & D. Vansteenwegen (Eds.), Fear and learning: From basic processes to clinical implications (pp. 37e52). Washington: APA Books.
Thompson, A., McEvoy, P. M., & Lipp, O. V. (2018). The effect of US presentations during extinction on the relapse of conditional fear in humans. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 108, 29-39.
Waters, A. M., Kershaw, R., & Lipp, O. V. (2018). Multiple fear-related stimuli enhance physiological arousal during extinction and reduce physiological arousal to novel stimuli and the threat conditioned stimulus. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 106, 28-36.
Lucas, K., Luck, C. C., & Lipp, O. V. (2018). Novelty facilitated extinction reduces the reinstatement of conditional human fear. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 109, 68-74.
Waters, A. M., LeBeau, R. T., & Craske, M. G. (2017). Experimental psychopathology and clinical psychology: An integrative model to guide clinical science and practice. Psychopathology Review, 2, 112-128.
O’Malley, K. R., & Waters, A. M. (2018). Attention avoidance of the threat conditioned stimulus during extinction increase physiological arousal generalisation and retention. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 104, 51-61.
Waters, A. M., & Craske, M. G. (2016). Towards a cognitive learning formulation of youth anxiety: A narrative review of theory and evidence and implications for treatment. Clinical Psychology Review, 50, 50-66.
Luck, C. C., Bramwell, S., Kerin, J., Green, L. J. S., Craig, B. M. & Lipp, O. V. (2018). Temporal context cues in human fear conditioning: Unreinforced conditional stimuli can segment learning into distinct temporal context and drive fear conditioning. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 108, 10-17.