title: Involvement of the human cerebellum in fear-conditioned potentiation of the acoustic startle response: a PET study.
abstract: Fear-conditioned potentiation of the startle response was used to study the role of the cerebellum in associative learning of non-specific aversive reactions in healthy human subjects using PET. Prior PET scanning initially neutral light stimuli were paired with painful electric shocks (fear-conditioning phase). Four PET-scans each were performed with presentation of acoustic startle stimuli (T), fear-conditioned light stimuli (L) or acoustic stimuli paired with light (LT, potentation phase). As a measure of fear-conditioning subtraction of condition T from LT revealed an increase of regional cerebellar blood flow (rCBF) in the left cerebellar hemisphere. Subtraction of condition L from LT, as a measure of fear-conditioned potentiation, revealed an increase of rCBF in the medial cerebellum. Different parts of the cerebellum appear to be involved in this form of motor associative learning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Essen, Hufelandstrasse 55, 45122 Essen, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Frings
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Maschke
authors.forename: Maren
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Erichsen
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jentzen
authors.forename: Stefan P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Florian P
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Kolb
authors.forename: Hans-Christoph
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Diener
authors.forename: Dagmar
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Timmann
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013216:Reflex, Startle / Q000502:physiology*; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed