Out of both of these articles I enjoyed reading and
analyzing the article written in 2008 significantly more. While the 2014
article was shorter and more compact, it was difficult for me to wrap my head
around the theta oscillations associated with this analysis. This may be due to
the fact that I have learned significantly less of this in school compared to
other methods. I think that some background knowledge on this reading may be
necessary in order to fully understand the implications this research has. I’m
hoping that the people presenting this paper are able to explain it in a
clearer capacity than this article did. Since it was published in Nature, I’m
sure the editors assumed a lot of background knowledge by the readers and took
out pieces that weren’t integral to the overall results.
Although I enjoyed the 2008 article significantly more,
there were still some questions left unanswered in this article that I think
when answered, would make it even stronger. For example, the author states that
the largest decrease seen in fear behavior during extinction training was seen
in between the third and fourth blocks. This statement immediately made me as
why this could be. The author hypothesizes that there could be some sort of
consolidation method that occurs overnight, but I wish more care was taken into
determining what that mechanism was. I’m sure a question like this will take an
entirely new research paper to explore, but the underlying mechanism behind
this consolidation process may hint at what occurs during the on/off switching
of fear. When this behavior is reactivated do these consolidated neurons then
reactivate? Or is it a completely separate system? I think this would be an
interesting area to explore and could add a lot more information to this
article.
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