Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23730279›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in human neuroscience2013

The impact of anxiety upon cognition: perspectives from human threat of shock studies.

Oliver J Robinson, Katherine Vytal, Brian R Cornwell, Christian Grillon

Open access · goldAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 265 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
265citing papers in PubMed, 7 pooled it
22.3field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

265 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 593 citations in OpenAlex.

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  19. Anxiety makes time pass quicker: neural correlates.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026
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205 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Oliver J RobinsonSection on the Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health Bethesda, MD, USA.
Katherine Vytal
Brian R Cornwell
Christian Grillon
National Institute of Mental Health · US

Funding

The Psychophysiology Of Fear And AnxietyZIAMH002798 · NIMH · NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH · PI GRILLON, CHRISTIAN · 2009 to 2022
$29.0M
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Anxiety disorders constitute a sizeable worldwide health burden with profound social and economic consequences. The symptoms are wide-ranging; from hyperarousal to difficulties with concentrating. This latter effect falls under the broad category of altered cognitive performance which is the focus of this review. Specifically, we examine the interaction between anxiety and cognition focusing on the translational threat of unpredictable shock paradigm; a method previously used to characterize emotional responses and defensive mechanisms that is now emerging as valuable tool for examining the interaction between anxiety and cognition. In particular, we compare the impact of threat of shock on cognition in humans to that of pathological anxiety disorders. We highlight that both threat of shock and anxiety disorders promote mechanisms associated with harm avoidance across multiple levels of cognition (from perception to attention to learning and executive function)-a "hot" cognitive function which can be both adaptive and maladaptive depending upon the circumstances. This mechanism comes at a cost to other functions such as working memory, but leaves some functions, such as planning, unperturbed. We also highlight a number of cognitive effects that differ across anxiety disorders and threat of shock. These discrepant effects are largely seen in "cold" cognitive functions involving control mechanisms and may reveal boundaries between adaptive (e.g., response to threat) and maladaptive (e.g., pathological) anxiety. We conclude by raising a number of unresolved questions regarding the role of anxiety in cognition that may provide fruitful avenues for future research.

Indexed as

anxietyanxiety disordersattentioncognitionexecutive functionlearning and memoryperceptionthreat of shock

Identifiers

PMID23730279
PMCPMC3656338
OpenAlexW2144093039

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.