From Pavlov to Pain: Extinction Learning in Visceral pain (A10)

• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316803389

Interoceptive signals arising from the gut, especially visceral pain, may shape learning and memory processes in ways that, despite their profound clinical relevance, remain incompletely understood. Implementing a conditioning paradigm involving nociceptive visceral and non-nociceptive auditory threats, we will conduct a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled behavioral study to test modality-specific effects of the stress hormone cortisol on extinction efficacy. In a novel context-dependent interoceptive conditioning paradigm with interoceptive CS, we will further delineate neural underpinnings of contextual interoceptive threat and safety learning, extinction, and the resurgence of fear as putative mechanisms involved in interoceptive hypervigilance in disorders of the gut-brain axis.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1280: Extinction Learning
• Applicant Institution: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
• Project Heads: Professorin Dr. Sigrid Elsenbruch; Dr. Adriane Icenhour, since 7/2021