ArticleNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2015
Effects of Cortisol on Reconsolidation of Reactivated Fear Memories.
Article in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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
18 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Navigating the garden of forking paths for data exclusions in fear conditioning research.eLife · 2019Pooled it
- Modulation of naturalistic maladaptive memories using behavioural and pharmacological reconsolidation-interfering strategies: a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical and 'sub-clinical' studies.Psychopharmacology · 2018Pooled it
- Cortisol administration after extinction in a fear-conditioning paradigm with traumatic film clips prevents return of fear.Translational psychiatry · 2019Trial
- Sex-dependent role of the dorsolateral septum in shaping contextual cocaine memory strength.Neuropharmacology · 2025Article
- Article
- Targeting Human Glucocorticoid Receptors in Fear Learning: A Multiscale Integrated Approach to Study Functional Connectivity.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Heat exposure following encoding can interfere with subsequent recognition memory.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- MDMA treatment paired with a trauma-cue promotes adaptive stress responses in a translational model of PTSD in rats.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
- Suppressing the Morning Cortisol Rise After Memory Reactivation at 4 A.M. enhances Episodic Memory Reconsolidation in Humans.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Article
- The interaction between stress and chronic pain through the lens of threat learning.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2019Review
- Pharmacological interventions during the process of reconsolidation of aversive memories: A systematic review.Neurobiology of stress · 2019Review
- Interfering with emotional processing resources upon associative threat memory reactivation does not affect memory retention.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Reactivation of the Unconditioned Stimulus Inhibits the Return of Fear Independent of Cortisol.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2019Article
- The dynamic interplay between acute psychosocial stress, emotion and autobiographical memory.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Stress, glucocorticoids and memory: implications for treating fear-related disorders.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2017Review
- Cortisol effects on fear memory reconsolidation in women.Psychopharmacology · 2016Article
- Could Stress Contribute to Pain-Related Fear in Chronic Pain?Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2015Article
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Relationship Between the Fear Response and Chronic Stress.Chronic stress (Thousand Oaks, Calif.)Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The return of conditioned fear after successful extinction (eg, following exposure therapy) is a significant problem in the treatment of anxiety disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Targeting the reconsolidation of fear memories may allow a more lasting effect as it intervenes with the original memory trace. Indeed, several pharmacological agents and behavioral interventions have been shown to alter (enhance, impair, or otherwise update) the reconsolidation of reactivated memories of different types. Cortisol is a stress hormone and a potent modulator of learning and memory, yet its effects on fear memory reconsolidation are unclear. To investigate whether cortisol intervenes with the reconsolidation of fear memories in healthy males and how specific this effect might be, we built a 3-day reconsolidation design with skin conductance response (SCR) as a measure of conditioned fear: Fear acquisition on day 1; reactivation/no-reactivation of one conditioned stimulus and pharmacological intervention on day 2; extinction learning followed by reinstatement and reinstatement test on day 3. The groups differed only in the experimental manipulation on day 2: Reactivation+Cortisol Group, Reactivation+Placebo Group, or No-reactivation+Cortisol Group. Our results revealed an enhancing effect of cortisol on reconsolidation of the reactivated memory. The effect was highly specific, strengthening only the memory of the reactivated conditioned stimulus and not the non-reactivated one. Our findings are in line with previous findings showing an enhancing effect of behavioral stress on the reconsolidation of other types of memories. These results have implications for the understanding and treatment of anxiety disorders and PTSD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.