Anna Gerlicher

Anna Gerlicher

About

28
Publications
5,317
Reads
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850
Citations
Introduction
As a clinical neuroscientist, I investigate how the brain forms and stabilizes long-term memories, with a special focus on the spontaneous consolidation processes occurring after learning. In my research, I combine behavioral data, psychophysiology and pharmacological manipulations with functional MRI data in humans.
Additional affiliations
August 2021 - February 2023
Utrecht University
Position
  • Assistant Professor
September 2018 - February 2023
University of Amsterdam
Position
  • PostDoc Position
November 2012 - August 2018
Universitätsmedizin der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Position
  • PhD Student
Education
September 2010 - October 2012
University of Amsterdam
Field of study
  • Research Master Psychology
October 2008 - August 2010
October 2006 - September 2008
University of Vienna
Field of study
  • Psychology

Publications

Publications (28)
Article
Full-text available
Fear extinction does not prevent post-traumatic stress or have long-term therapeutic benefits in fear-related disorders unless extinction memories are easily retrieved at later encounters with the once-threatening stimulus. Previous research in rodents has pointed towards a role for spontaneous prefrontal activity occurring after extinction learnin...
Article
It is a joyous relief when an event we dread fails to materialize. In fear extinction, the appetitive nature of an omitted aversive event is not a mere epiphenomenon but drives the reduction of fear responses and the formation of long-term extinction memories. Dopamine emerges as key neurobiological mediator of these related processes.
Article
Full-text available
Rationale A promising strategy to prevent a return of fear after exposure-based therapy in anxiety disorders is to pharmacologically enhance the extinction memory consolidation presumed to occur after exposure. Accumulating evidence suggests that the effect of a number of pharmacological consolidation enhancers depends on a successful fear reductio...
Article
Full-text available
In this report, we illustrate the considerable impact of researcher degrees of freedom with respect to exclusion of participants in paradimgs with a learning element. We illustrate this empirically through case examples from human fear conditioning research where the exclusion of 'non-learners' and 'non-responders' is common - despite a lack of con...
Preprint
Although reconsolidation-based interventions constitute a promising new avenue to treating fear and anxieties disorders, the success of the intervention is not guaranteed. The initiation of memory reconsolidation is dependent on whether a mismatch between the experienced and predicted outcome – a prediction error (PE) – occurs during fear memory re...
Article
Full-text available
Even after successful extinction, conditioned fear can return. Strengthening the consolidation of the fear-inhibitory safety memory formed during extinction is one way to counteract return of fear. In a previous study, we found that post-extinction L-DOPA administration improved extinction memory retrieval 24 h later. Furthermore, spontaneous post-...
Preprint
Full-text available
Even after successful extinction, conditioned fear can return. Strengthening the consolidation of the fear-inhibitory safety memory formed during extinction is one way to counteract return of fear. In this preregistered direct replication study in male participants, we confirm that spontaneous post-extinction reactivations of a neural activation pa...
Article
Full-text available
The ‘sleep to forget and sleep to remember hypothesis’ proposes that sleep weakens the emotional tone of an experience while preserving or even enhancing its content. Prior experimental research however shows contradictory findings on how emotional reactivity changes after a period of sleep, likely explained by methodological variations. By address...
Article
Notwithstanding the success of CBT, it is relatively unknown how individuals can better profit from corrective learning experiences. Various theories postulate that prediction errors –the difference between what is occurring and what is expected – are the driving force of associative (re)learning. While prediction errors are typically operationaliz...
Article
Full-text available
Although reconsolidation-based interventions constitute a promising new avenue to treating fear and anxieties disorders, the success of the intervention is not guaranteed. The initiation of memory reconsolidation is dependent on whether a mismatch between the experienced and predicted outcome-a prediction error (PE)-occurs during fear memory reacti...
Article
Raw data are typically required to be processed to be ready for statistical analyses, and processing pipelines are often characterized by substantial heterogeneity. Here, we applied seven different approaches (trough‐to‐peak scoring by two different raters, script‐based baseline correction, Ledalab as well as four different models implemented in th...
Article
Full-text available
Conditioned fear can substantially reduce the likelihood that an individual will engage in reward-related behavior--a phenomenon coined conditioned suppression. Despite the unmistakable relevance of conditioned suppression for excessive fears and their adverse consequences, the phenomenon has primarily been observed in animal models and is not yet...
Article
Full-text available
There is heterogeneity in and a lack of consensus on the preferred statistical analyses in light of a multitude of potentially equally justifiable approaches. Here, we introduce multiverse analysis for the field of experimental psychopathology research. We present a model multiverse approach tailored to fear conditioning research and, as a secondar...
Preprint
The dopamine precursor L-DOPA is a promising adjunct to exposure therapy in anxiety disorders. In two magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies we previously showed that a post-extinction administration of L-DOPA reduces the return of fear. However, when aiming to replicate these results outside the MRI scanner, we found weaker effects – albeit with...
Preprint
Conditioned fear can substantially reduce the likelihood that an individual will engage in reward- related behaviour - a phenomenon coined conditioned suppression. Despite the unmistakable relevance of conditioned suppression for excessive fears and their adverse consequences, the phenomenon has primarily been observed in animal models and is not y...
Preprint
Scientific work rests fundamentally upon data, their measurement, processing, analysis, illustration and interpretation. Raw data have to be processed to be ready for statistical analyses and interpretation. While these processing pipelines can be well defined and standardized, they are often characterized by substantial heterogeneity. Here, we pre...
Preprint
There is heterogeneity in and a lack of consensus on the preferred statistical analyses foranalyzing fear conditioning effects in light of a multitude of potentially equally justifiablestatistical approaches. Here, we introduce the concept of multiverse analysis for fearconditioning research. We also present a model multiverse approach specifically...
Preprint
A cue that indicates imminent threat elicits a wide range of physiological, hormonal, autonomic, cognitive, and emotional fear responses in humans and facilitates threat-specific avoidance behavior. The occurrence of a threat cue can, however, also have general motivational effects and affect behavior. That is, the encounter with a threat cue can i...
Preprint
In this report, we use fear conditioning research as an example to illustrate the considerable impact of researcher degrees of freedom with respect to exclusion of participants. In human fear conditioning research, the exclusion of substantial numbers of participants as ‘non-learners’ and ‘non-responders’ is common - despite a lack of consensus on...
Article
Dopamine dysfunction is associated with a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders commonly treated pharmacologically or invasively. Recent studies provide evidence for a nonpharmacological and noninvasive alternative that allows similar manipulation of the dopaminergic system: transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In rodents, tDCS has be...
Article
Full-text available
In the original version of this Article, the fourth sentence of the legend to Figure 1b incorrectly read “Note, that the group difference stemmed from significantly smaller CS+ evoked SCRs averaged across the whole test phase, but the speed of re-extinction did not differ significantly between drug groups (control analysis with stimulus (CS+, CS−)...
Article
Full-text available
Smith and colleagues developed the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS) to assess the individual ability to recover from stress despite significant adversity. This study aimed to validate the German version of the BRS. We used data from a population-based (sample 1: n = 1.481) and a representative (sample 2: n = 1.128) sample of participants from the Germa...
Data
German version of the Brief Resilience Scale. (PDF)
Article
According to appraisal theories fear and anxiety are elicited by the subjective evaluation of a situation or internal state as threatening. From this perspective anxiety disorders result from maladaptive, exaggerated threat appraisals that over-estimate the threatening consequences of often innocuous stimuli and situations. When these threat over-e...
Article
Full-text available
In human social interactions, facial emotional expressions are a crucial source of information. Repeatedly presented information typically leads to an adaptation of neural responses. However, processing seems sustained with emotional facial expressions. Therefore, we tested whether sustained processing of emotional expressions, especially threat-re...

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