Trial reportNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2009
Two-week treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor citalopram reduces contextual anxiety but not cued fear in healthy volunteers: a fear-potentiated startle study.
Trial report in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of SSRIs on fear learning: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychopharmacology · 2023Pooled it
- Amygdala activity after subchronic escitalopram administration in healthy volunteers: A pharmaco-functional magnetic resonance imaging study.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2024Trial
- Serotonin depletion impairs both Pavlovian and instrumental reversal learning in healthy humans.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Trial
- Neurophysiological and clinical effects of the NMDA receptor antagonist lanicemine (BHV-5500) in PTSD: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.Depression and anxiety · 2021Trial
- The novel vasopressin receptor (V1aR) antagonist SRX246 reduces anxiety in an experimental model in humans: a randomized proof-of-concept study.Psychopharmacology · 2021Trial
- Effect of Tryptophan Depletion on Conditioned Threat Memory Expression: Role of Intolerance of Uncertainty.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2021Trial
- Mechanistic link between right prefrontal cortical activity and anxious arousal revealed using transcranial magnetic stimulation in healthy subjects.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- Acute prazosin administration does not reduce stressor reactivity in healthy adults.Psychopharmacology · 2019Trial
- The CRH1 antagonist GSK561679 increases human fear but not anxiety as assessed by startle.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- A single dose of antidepressant alters eye-gaze patterns across face stimuli in healthy women.Psychopharmacology · 2015Trial
- Acute tryptophan depletion increases translational indices of anxiety but not fear: serotonergic modulation of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis?Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2012Trial
- Acute hydrocortisone treatment increases anxiety but not fear in healthy volunteers: a fear-potentiated startle study.Biological psychiatry · 2011Trial
- Longitudinal associations between binge drinking and changes in behavioral and neural threat reactivity in youth.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Reply to Lago, T.R.; Bolognani, F. Comment on "Nazarloo et al. Oxytocin, Vasopressin and Stress: A Hormetic Perspective.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Comment on Nazarloo et al. Oxytocin, Vasopressin and Stress: A Hormetic Perspective.Current issues in molecular biology · 2026Article
- Transdiagnostic Fear and Anxiety: Prospective Prediction Using the No-Threat, Predictable Threat, and Unpredictable Threat Task.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2023Article
- The Role of Serotonin in Fear Learning and Memory: A Systematic Review of Human Studies.Brain sciences · 2023Review
- Identifying Transdiagnostic Mechanisms in Mental Health Using Computational Factor Modeling.Biological psychiatry · 2023Review
- A midbrain-reticulotegmental circuit underlies exaggerated startle under fear emotions.Molecular psychiatry · 2022Article
- Are Fear and Anxiety Truly Distinct?Biological psychiatry global open science · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Chronic treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) alleviates both anxiety symptoms and associated physiologic disturbances in anxious patients. However, limited research considers the degree to which chronic SSRI treatment influences anxiety in healthy individuals. This study examined the effect of 2-week citalopram treatment on two threat responses: short- and long-duration-potentiated startle. Prior work suggests that these two responses provide neurally and functionally distinct models of fear and anxiety, respectively, in rodents. Healthy volunteers (n=53) received either placebo or citalopram (20 mg per day) for 2 weeks under double-blind conditions. They were each tested twice, before and after treatment. Participants were exposed to three conditions, including one in which predictable aversive shocks were signaled by a cue, a second in which unpredictable shocks were anticipated, and a third in which no shocks were administered. Aversive states were indexed by acoustic startle. Phasic fear-potentiated startle to the threat cue, as well as sustained startle potentiation to the experimental context in the predictable and unpredictable conditions, were investigated. Citalopram affected neither baseline startle nor short-duration fear-potentiated startle to discrete threat cues. However, citalopram reduced long-duration startle potentiation in the predictable conditions. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that short- and long-duration aversive states are mediated by distinct neural systems. They suggest that citalopram alleviates symptoms of anticipatory anxiety, not fear, by acting on mechanisms underlying long-duration aversive states.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.