El condicionament clàssic i els orígens de l'ansietat patològica: una aproximació a través de la metodologia del reflex de sobresalt

(...) The general goal of the current project is to improve the knowledge on aversive CC in the origins of pathological anxiety. This question will be investigated using a sub-clinical population selected on the basis of extreme scores on measures of trait-anxiety and by using the SR and electrodermal activity as indexes of affective processing. The starting hypothesis is that anxious subjects are different from non-anxious subjects in aversive CC processes and that these differences may be observed in sub-clinical populations and assessed by means of the SR. Three studies are planned to answer four questions: 1- Are anxious subjects more conditionable than non-anxious subjects? 2. Do anxious subjects have a deficit in the inhibition of anxiety responses in front of safety signals? 3- Do anxious subjects have a greater context conditioning as compared to non-anxious subjects? The first study addresses the first question. It is planned to use a simple CC paradigm, where a neutral stimulus would be repeatedly paired with and unconditioned stimulus (US) to become conditioned. The second study would consist of two phases and would address questions 2 and 3; a differential CC paradigm would be used, where two stimuli (CS+ and CS-) are presented to the subject and one of them is always followed by the US; in this case , the intention is to aversively condition the CS+ and that the CS- becomes a safety signal. The third study would be carried out to answer the fourth answer and would use a simple aversive CC procedure with and unpredictable shock in two sessions, separated by one week. Both sessions would be identical to experiment 1, with the exception that there would be no contingent relationship between CS and US.