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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: Behav Res Ther. 2019 Dec 12;125:103532. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2019.103532

Figure 2. A simplified dopaminergic mediated fear extinction circuit.

Figure 2.

When an aversive outcome is omitted during extinction (or exposure), a prediction error (PE) is generated by the dopamine system. (A) The PE is encoded by a subpopulation of dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) (Salinas-Hernandez et al., 2018; Luo et al., 2016). This subclass of dopamine neurons transmits the PE from the VTA to the ventral striatum. (B) VTA dopaminergic neurons projecting to the ventral striatum promote the activity of extinction related circuitry, particularly the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and amygdala (Luo et al., 2018; Correia et al., 2016; Rodriguez-Romageura et al., 2012). (*) Even though these studies support the role of dopamine in extinction, it is still not entirely clear how dopamine in the ventral striatum modulates activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala. (C) The vmPFC regulates the expression of learned fear by gating output from the central nucleus of the amygdala.