Comparison of flooding procedures in animals and man

Avoidance behavior in animals and man is contrasted in the context of “flooding” or “response prevention”. Some experimentally established parameters affecting fear reduction in rats are examined with a view to their relevance in modifying phobic behavior in man. Two case reports of patients treated by flooding are cited to illustrate the absence of avoidance or escape responses when these patients were exposed to situations they considered highly anxiety arousing before treatment.     

Physiological mechanisms of flooding (implosion) therapy

Desensitization of psychological and physiological complex structures may be the most important element of flooding treatment. The jmplosive sessions are assumed to represent a supramaximal stimulation of pathologically excited and inert complex structures resulting in protective inhibition, irradiation of excitation, reduction of the excitation and inertness, and a decrease of the overshooting autonomic reactivity of the complex structures, leading to reduction of anxiety, aggression, and other pathologically increased feelings. Advantages such as stronger and improved flooding can be achieved by a flooding in hypnosis. The therapeutic indications go beyond the usual treatment of phobic states. In order to establish the psychological and physiological mechanisms in implosion there is a need for psychophysiological investigations. However, much is unknown about mechanisms. Controlled comparisons with other treatments give limited answers. Perhaps an international case history bank might establish which clinical conditions might benefit by technical modifications of flooding.     

Distraction during flooding (exposure): concordance between results in animals and man

The historical relation between animal studies of flooding or response prevention, and the use of the flooding procedure (exposure) in man has been noted previously. Attempts to increase flooding efficacy by introducing distracting stimuli during flooding have been made in both animal and human studies. This paper reviews the results of these parallel distraction studies, and concludes that there is a concordance between results in animals and man.     

Superiority of flooding (implosion) to desensitisation for reducing pathological fear

Flooding was compared to desensitisation as a fear-reducer in 16 phobic patients who were treated in a crossover design with 6 sessions of each procedure. Flooding was significantly superior to desensitisation on clinical and physiological measures and improvement has been maintained over twelve months followup. Flooding is a promising technique for the reduction of fear in anxious phobic patients. The essential therapeutic components of flooding still have to be determined before it can be used routinely.     

Tonotypic cortical representation in man (case report)

Cortical stimulation—evoked perception of tones differing in pitch suggests that the perception of pitch may be discretely organized in the human auditory parakoniocortex. Findings, obtained from a neurosurgical patient undergoing temporal lobectomy, are discussed with reference to anatomical and functional considerations of the auditory parakoniocortex in humans. These tonotypic findings are potentially significant since, as previously reported (see references in Discussion section), auditory sensations have not been analyzed in relation to perceptual categories of pitch. Address correspondence to: Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233.     

An automated swim alley for small animals: II. Training and procedures

Experiments were conducted to establish training procedures and testing conditions that produce uniform and reliable swimming performance of rats in an automated swim alley. Data are given on the effect of water temperature and of platform rest interval on swimming speeds. In this system, rats will swim intermittently for as long as 24 h for a distance of more than 7 km.