Keywords
extinction
fear conditioning
anxiety disorders
How to Cite
Abstract
At the present, effective treatments are available to reduce anxiety symptoms and their associated distress. Nevertheless, it is frequently observed that anxiety responses are recovered after extinction, without being clear the responsible mechanism of such phenomenon. For decades, it has been presumed the existence of a reconsolidation mechanism. Such mechanism is thought to participate in the re-storage of memories that have been evoked. Recent research apparently reveals that intervention on reconsolidation mechanisms prevents the recovery of anxiety responses that have been previously extinguished. Intervention on these mechanisms could represent an alternative to current psychological treatments for anxiety disorders based on exposure procedures. The objective of the present work is to review the evidence on reconsolidation mechanisms and its effects on the reduction of anxiety responses. Finally some clinical implications will be discussed.This journal is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights. Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.