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FB Kolloq WS 23/24: Tom Beckers

„Anxiolytics and avoidance: Challenging the accepted wis-dom regarding their effects on exposure treatment”

Veranstaltungsdaten

Prof. Dr. Tom Beckers, University of Leuven, Belgium, in Kooperation mit dem Graduiertenkolleg
„Anxiolytics and avoidance: Challenging the accepted wis-dom regarding their effects on exposure treatment”

To make life bearable, many people suffering from anxiety resort to avoidance behavior and/or the use of anxiolytics. However, both of those are thought to be detrimental to the effectiveness of exposure treatment. This is supported by experimental lab research on extinction learning, a key lab model of exposure treatment. In particular, research has shown that safety behaviors can main-tain threat beliefs, thus yielding protection from extinction, and that benzodi-azepines administered prior to extinction training impair later extinction re-trieval. Accordingly, during exposure treatment, avoidance behavior is typical-ly prevented and the continued use of anxiolytics discouraged. I will present data from a series of experiments in rats (and one in humans) that (a) question the notion that the possibility for avoidance necessarily slows down extinction learning if avoidance comes at a cost and (b) suggest that the negative effects on extinction retrieval often observed for classic anxiolytics (i.e., benzodiaze-pines) may not apply to propranolol, a non-selective beta receptor antagonist that is sometimes used to manage social anxiety, panic and performance anxie-ty. I’ll discuss potential implications for theories of extinction learning and for clinical management during anxiety treatment.