Neural circuits for fear relapse

Humans and other animals rapidly associate environmental cues with aversive outcomes. However, learned fear responses are slow to attenuate, and the fear memory itself may be difficult or impossible to erase. Indeed the relapse of previously extinguished fear is a widespread phenomenon and poses a great challenge to the long-term efficacy of therapies for fear-related pathologies in humans. This chapter provides an updated account of the neurobiological basis of fear relapse, with particular emphasis on circuits within and among the amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex.