PSYC3338 Chapter Notes - Chapter NA: Memory Consolidation, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Amygdala
Document Summary
3. 5% of americans suffer from ptsd; for soldiers prevalence is 1 in 5. In ptsd, fear is chronic and debilitating. What we know about fear has its basis in studies of the stomach. Pavlov originally researched digestion before realizing that dogs not only salivated while eating food, but before the food was brought out by someone in a lab coat. After repeatedly hearing a bell during mealtime, the dogs learned to salivate whenever it chimed. Researchers have conditioned rats and mice to freeze in fear when they hear a tone that they learned to associate with a mild shock. Humans could be conditioned to fear everyday items if paired with an everyday item. Fear outside the laboratory (children fear the doctor after receiving a shot) When researchers lesioned the amygdala animals were unable to associate a neutral stimulus with a fearful event.
