TY  - JOUR
ID  - discovery10205158
N2  - Despite the widespread use of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), only about half of patients respond favourably. Understanding whether relevant psychological processes are associated with treatment response could help identify patients at risk of non-response prior to treatment and improve their outcomes by enabling clinicians to tailor interventions accordingly. Fear conditioning tasks are a valuable tool for studying the learning processes associated with anxiety disorders and their treatment. This study examined associations between outcomes from a remote fear conditioning task and responses to internet-based CBT.
Anxious adults (n = 112) completed a fear conditioning task before receiving internet-based CBT. Participants rated their expectancy of an aversive noise (unconditioned stimulus; US) in response to a reinforced conditional stimulus (CS+) and a nonreinforced conditional stimulus (CS-) during acquisition, followed by extinction where neither stimulus was reinforced. Anxiety symptoms were assessed before each CBT session. Linear regression models indicated no significant association between mean US-expectancy ratings for 'safe' stimuli (acquisition CS- and extinction CS+) and change in anxiety across treatment. These findings contribute to the mixed literature on fear conditioning's role in treatment outcomes, highlighting the need for further research to elucidate the complex interplay between fear conditioning processes and response to CBT in anxiety disorders.
SN  - 0005-7967
PB  - Elsevier BV
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2025.104705
JF  - Behaviour Research and Therapy
KW  - Fear conditioning; Fear extinction; Cognitive-behavioural therapy; Online; Treatment
outcome; Anxiety
A1  - McGregor, Thomas
A1  - Carr, Ewan
A1  - Barry, Tom
A1  - Catarino, Ana
A1  - Craske, Michelle G
A1  - Davies, Molly R
A1  - Kerr, Tim
A1  - Krebs, Georgina
A1  - MacDonald, Bridie
A1  - Purves, Kirstin L
A1  - Skelton, Megan
A1  - Thompson, Ellen J
A1  - Breen, Gerome
A1  - Hirsch, Colette R
A1  - Eley, Thalia C
TI  - Self-report measures of fear learning and extinction and their association with internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy outcome
AV  - restricted
Y1  - 2025/02//
VL  - 187
N1  - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions.
ER  -