Reflection Assignment 1

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Psychology

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Feb 20, 2024

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1. In the journal article the primary variable being measured is SCR. What is SCR and how is it measured? Why is SCR being measured? SCR is skin conductance response, which is a method to measure physiological fear response as the experiment focuses on how applying rTMS (repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation) to the dIPFC (important brain part in retrieving memory) reduces fear. SCR is measured by observing and recording the changes in sweat gland activity in an individual’s body when the fear stimulus is presented. It is measured to understand whether applying the magnetic stimulation is altering one’s memories, especially the ones that trigger fear by observing the level of SCR (higher SCR, more fear). 2. Briefly explain each stage in the fear conditioning protocol (Acquisition, Memory Recall, Extinction, and Reinstatement). Learning to associate a specific stimulus with fear is the first stage of fear conditioning protocol, which is acquisition. In this experiment two different visual stimuli (one with a shock and one without a shock) were presented for participants to associate with fear. The next day, when they are presented with these stimuli, when they recall the memory associated with it, that is the second stage of fear conditioning. When they are undergoing the process of reducing this fear response (while applying rTMS), that is referred to as the third stage of fear conditioning, extinction. And finally, they go through an reinstatement phase, which is where they are tested to see if the fear that was reduced in the extinction phase comes back. 3. What is rTMS? How does the technique work? rTMS is a modulation technique used to influence certain parts of the brain through utilizing a magnetic field to induce electrical currents in specific parts of the brain. It works by placing an electromagnetic coil in the head of a person especially near the specific region the researchers want to impact. When electricity is connected to the coil it changes the magnetic field, which ends up changing the electrical signals in the specific brain region. These currents can be changed using frequencies (here they used low frequency), depending on the amount of impact needed. These currents modify neuron activity. In this experiment, coil was put on the dIPFC during fear memory reactivation phase to see if altering the neuron activity will have an impact on fear response. 4. Do you think rTMS will have potential clinical applications? Why or why not (*You should reference specific data figures from the journal article when defending your claim)? I think rTMS will definitely have potential clinical applications. Especially when helping people deal with PTSD or other traumatic incidents where certain visual cues for auditory cues have been conditioned for them to be associated with fear. In a therapy setting, the doctor can utilize rTMS and modify neuron activity to reduce their fear response when faced with such traumatic triggers. In figure 3, as shown in the data collection, the SCR for CS+ for left and right brain rTMS stimulation during memory recall is about a mean of .6, however, in extinction and when the fear memory is trying to be reduced, the SCR is reduced to about a mean of .3. We can see there is a modification of memories done during extinction which is reducing the

physiological fear response almost by half, hence this method will be helpful in a clinical setting. 5. What are some weaknesses or potential ethical issues with the use of this technique as a treatment? What policies or guidelines would you like to see in place before this technique is made available for widespread use? Even though this is a non-invasive technique, it utilizes a magnetic field. The magnetic field could potentially be impacted if humans have metal stents or other implants in their body that could affect the magnetic field. The ethical issues being that how can one decide which memory to keep and which to erase, this could potentially be a destruction of human personality if all bad memories are removed, making us all artificially happy, which is not okay because humans having bad memories and fears are part of what makes us humans. The policies I want to see in place is that this technique should strictly only be used with patients and not for personal use, and only with patients who have severe trauma issues. Doctors need to verify patient records and have proper threshold for trauma level and only use this method if the trauma of a patient goes past a standard threshold. 6. The journal article shows that rTMS of the dlPFC on Day 2 resulted in no difference in the SCR response between the CS+ and CS- during memory recall and reinstatement. This indicates that rTMS prevented fear memory reconsolidation. We would predict that this is the result of rTMS stimulating activity in the dlPFC. What methodology (that we discussed in lecture) would you use to measure a change in dlPFC activity in a living behaving subject? Explain why you chose the method and how you would incorporate the method into the fear conditioning task protocol used in the journal article? I will utilize MEG (Magnetoencephalography) scan to measure change in dIPFC activity in the brain. MEG can be easily localized and has high spatial resolution, so I can make sure to measure only activity changes in dIPFC. It also doesn’t actually use magnets, so even people with transplants can utilize this and the currents don’t get distorted easily which will give better accurate activity changes. In the protocol, I would still utilize rTMS to stimulate the brain during the extinction stage. But right after stimulation, and in intervals, I will take MEG scans to see which specific parts in the MEG are activated and how they activate over a period of time to see the changes and impacts rTMS can have on the dIPFC, to look at the brain function before starting to measure SCR.

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