Fear-learning deficits in fibromyalgia: precursor or consequence?

摘要

In this issue, you will find a paper entitled, 'Fear-learning deficits in subjects with fibromyalgia syndrome' (Jenewein et al., 2013). The authors used a paradigm to study conditioned fear in persons with fibromyalgia (FM) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA), relative to healthy, pain-free controls (HC). Typically, fear conditioning involves the presentation of a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS+) that is paired with an aver-sive unconditioned stimulus (US), whereas another neutral conditioned stimulus (CS-) is also presented but not paired with the US. In healthy individuals, the CS+ comes to evoke the same physiological-emotional responses as the US (e.g., fear/anxiety), whereas the CS- becomes a safety signal that does not evoke US-related responses.