Fear Conditioning

Fear conditioning is a classical (Pavlovian) learning paradigm in which a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS—e.g., a tone or image) is repeatedly paired with an aversive outcome (unconditioned stimulus, US—e.g., mild electric shock or loud noise). After conditioning, the CS alone elicits a fear response. Fear conditioning is fundamental to understanding associative learning, anxiety disorders, and the neural bases of threat detection. Behavioral and physiological measures reveal learning acquisition, extinction, and individual differences in fear sensitivity.