Schedule of Events | Symposia

Sketchpad Series

Cannabidiol-Enhanced Fear Extinction in Individuals with Social Anxiety

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Finian Zakas¹ (fcx24001@uconn.edu), Skyler Sklenarik¹, Mia Tzikas¹, Aishwarya Benzy¹, Claudia Mizerek¹, Sarah Franzen¹, Riley McNaboe¹, Hugo Posada-Quintero¹, Kimberli Treadwell¹, David Tolin², Robert Astur¹; ¹University of Connecticut, ²Anxiety Disorder Center, Hartford Hospital

Anxiety disorders, characterized by intense fear, worry, and anxiety that impede daily functioning, are increasingly prevalent, affecting approximately 20% of 18–29-year-olds each year. Classical fear conditioning has been instrumental in guiding our understanding of anxiety. Research by Das and colleagues (2013) found that cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive component of the cannabis plant, enhanced fear extinction in healthy humans on a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm. However, further investigation is necessary to determine if CBD must be present for extinction or immediately after fear acquisition. Moreover, despite the prevalence of extinction-based treatments, CBD-enhanced extinction in anxiety disorder populations remains uninvestigated. To address this gap, we are investigating whether CBD administration immediately post fear acquisition enhances extinction in undergraduates with social anxiety. Participants are conditioned to fear one of two angry faces (young or old) through pairings with an aversive forearm shock (CS+) or shock omission (CS-). They then receive a 600mg oral dose of CBD or placebo immediately after fear acquisition, 45 minutes prior to fear extinction. Galvanic skin response (GSR) is collected for each participant along with visual analog scale (VAS) assessment of shock contingency and face fear as well as assessments on anxiety, trait/state anxiety, uncertainty tolerance, and cannabis use. We hypothesize that participants who received CBD will have enhanced fear extinction as compared to the placebo group. Our findings, in conjunction with a planned investigation of delayed CBD administration, will help elucidate optimal timing for CBD administration, with the intent of informing enhanced exposure therapy in clinical settings.

Topic Area: OTHER