Fear Extinction Circuit Simulator (2D)

This simulation models the neural circuit behind trauma recovery and exposure therapy: the tug-of-war between the amygdala's fear memory and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex's competing extinction memory. Run acquisition trials to condition a fear response, then run extinction trials to suppress it — and watch how switching context, letting time pass, or a single stressful "reinstatement" event can bring the fear response back, exactly as it does in real relapse after therapy. Every number on screen is driven by the Rescorla–Wagner learning rule applied to two separate, competing synaptic traces, drawn here as a flat, pannable 2D circuit diagram with live excitatory and inhibitory pulses and a running strip-chart of both traces.