Continuous theta-burst stimulation over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex disrupts fear memory reconsolidation in humans

Sizhen Su; Jiahui Deng; Kai Yuan; Yimiao Gong; Yuxin Zhang; Hui Li; Kexin Cao; Xiaolin Huang; Xiao Lin; Ping Wu; Yanxue Xue; Yanping Bao; Jie Shi; Le Shi; Lin Lu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.103614

Continuous theta-burst stimulation over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex disrupts fear memory reconsolidation in humans

iScience. 2021 Dec 11;25(1):103614. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103614. eCollection 2022 Jan 21.

Authors

Sizhen Su¹, Jiahui Deng¹, Kai Yuan¹, Yimiao Gong², Yuxin Zhang², Hui Li¹, Kexin Cao³, Xiaolin Huang⁴, Xiao Lin¹, Ping Wu³, Yanxue Xue³, Yanping Bao³, Jie Shi³, Le Shi¹, Lin Lu^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), 51 HuayuanBei Road, Beijing 100191, China.
² Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences and PKU-IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
³ National Institute on Drug Dependence and Beijing Key Laboratory of Drug Dependence, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China.
⁴ Savaid Medical School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.

Abstract

Continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS), a non-invasive brain stimulation technique, can induce long-lasting changes in synaptic plasticity, vital for memory reconsolidation. For this study, a total of 170 participants completed four experiments by a randomized controlled design. Succeeding fear conditioning, the subjects received cTBS over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) or vertex (control) with or without exposure to the conditioned stimulus to reactivate the original fear memory, and then underwent fear response tests. Compared with cTBS over the vertex and without memory reactivation, only cTBS over the right dlPFC after reactivation decreased the fear response for both recent and remote fear memories. This procedure was effective only during the reconsolidation window. The disruptive effect of cTBS over the right dlPFC on fear memory reconsolidation was delay-dependent. These findings demonstrate that cTBS time-dependently and delay-dependently prevents the return of fear and may have clinical potential for treating fear-related disorders.

Keywords: Behavioral neuroscience; Cognitive neuroscience; Neurogenetics.