Does fear extinction in the laboratory predict outcomes of exposure therapy? A treatment analog study

Fear extinction models have a key role in our understanding of anxiety disorders and their treatment with exposure therapy. Here, we tested whether individual differences in fear extinction learning and fear extinction recall in the laboratory were associated with the outcomes of an exposure therapy analog (ETA). Fifty adults with fear of spiders participated in a two-day fear-learning paradigm assessing fear extinction learning and fear extinction recall, and then underwent a brief ETA. Correlational analyses indicated that enhanced extinction learning was associated with better ETA outcome. Our results partially support the idea that individual differences in fear extinction learning may be associated with exposure therapy outcome, but suggest that further research in this area is needed. •Studied the association between fear extinction and an analog of exposure therapy.•Measures of extinction learning were associated with the outcomes of the analog of exposure therapy.•Extinction learning could be a valid model for exposure therapy in the clinic.