Research network for the (European) Interdisciplinary study of Fear and Extinction Learning as well as the Return of Fear (EIFEL-ROF)
Final Report Abstract
The major aims of this Scientific Network were to (1) enable better communication, coordination and exchange between research groups and a focus on transdisciplinarity, (2) coherently delineate the factors underlying individual differences in (pathological) anxiety through the study of fear conditioning, extinction and return of fear and (3) to increase communication and coordination through research guidelines papers, joint publication of review articles and coordination of cross-laboratory replication tests and data pooling without additional funding. This network grant provided us with the opportunity to bring together researchers from fifteen different labs across Europe to discuss methodological topics and general methods in the field of fear conditioning research. These discussions have helped us to identify methodological gaps as well as areas characterized by (mostly) unintended but often excessive number of pipelines for data processing and analysis (sometimes referred to as ‘researchers’ degrees of freedom’) as well as to identify implicit assumptions in the field that need to be tested empirically. Originating from these discussions, the network has produced a number of consensus, tutorial and review articles, composed as collaborative effort of a varying set of network members – in some cases supported and coauthored by international guests invited to network meetings. These include for instance a primer/tutorial on procedural and data analytical methods in fear conditioning research in humans including methodological recommendations, an overview on participant exclusion practices in the field and empirically-based suggestion for handling exclusions based on cross-lab agreement, a review on methods and results in the field of individual differences in fear conditioning research as well as a review on methodological comparisons in translational cross-species research as a collaborative effort with researchers working in the rodent field.
Publications
- (2017). Don’t fear “fear conditioning”: Methodological considerations for the design and analysis of studies on human fear acquisition, extinction, and return of fear. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 77, 247-285
Lonsdorf, T. B., Menz, M. M., Andreatta, M., Fullana, M. A., Golkar, A., Haaker, J […] & Merz, C. J.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.02.026) - (2017). More than just noise: Inter-individual differences in fear acquisition, extinction and return of fear in humans – Biological, experiential, temperamental factors, and methodological pitfalls. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 703-728
Lonsdorf, T.B. & Merz, C.J.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.07.007) - (2019). Fear extinction retention – is it what we think it is? Biological Psychiatry, 85:1074–1082
Lonsdorf, T.B., Merz, C.J., & Fullana, M.A.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.02.011) - (2019). Latency of skin conductance responses across stimulus modalities. Psychophysiology, 56, e13307
Sjouwerman, R., & Lonsdorf, T. B.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13307) - (2019). Navigating the garden of forking paths for data exclusions in fear conditioning research. eLife, 8:e52465
Lonsdorf, T. B., Klingelhöfer-Jens, M., Andreatta, M., Beckers, T., Chalkia, A., Gerlicher, A., Jentsch, V.L., Meir Drexler, S., Mertens, G., Richter, J., Sjouwerman, T., Wendt, J. & Merz, C. J.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.52465)
