• Meike Pappens, Omer Van den Bergh, Debora Vansteenwegen, Erik Ceunen, Steven De Peuter, and Ilse Van Diest.
• Research Group on Health Psychology, University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 102 box 3726, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
• Biol Psychol. 2013 Jan 1; 92 (1): 36-42.

AbstractThe present study investigated interoceptive fear conditioning (IFC) to an interoceptive and exteroceptive conditional stimulus (CS) with a severe respiratory load applied for 30s as the unconditional stimulus (US). CSs were another, weak respiratory load in the intero-IFC study (N=74), and a neutral picture in the extero-IFC study (N=42). CSs preceded the US in the paired groups, whereas the unpaired groups received the same number of unpaired CSs and USs. We measured startle blink EMG, self-reported fear and respiration. In the intero-IFC study, the CS-load was associated with larger startle blinks and a smaller decrease in respiratory rate and tidal volume in the paired compared to the unpaired group. In the extero-IFC study, the CS-picture evoked an increase in tidal volume and self-reported fear only in the paired group. In addition, startle potentiation during the CS-picture was greater for the paired than for the unpaired group.Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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