Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26578871›Full record

ReviewFrontiers in neuroscience2015

I'll take the low road: the evolutionary underpinnings of visually triggered fear.

James A Carr

Open access · goldAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Frontiers in neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
20citing papers in PubMed
5.5field-weighted citation impact, top 3% 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

20 citing papers in PubMed, 165 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. A Direct Auditory Subcortical Route to the Amygdala Associated with Fear in Humans.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Review
  6. Article
  7. Review
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Review
  14. Article
  15. The plus maze and scototaxis test are not valid behavioral assays for anxiety assessment in the South African clawed frog.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2019
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Review
  18. Article
  19. A Rapid Subcortical Amygdala Route for Faces Irrespective of Spatial Frequency and Emotion.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2017
    Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.

James A CarrDepartment of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX, USA.
Texas Tech University · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Although there is general agreement that the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) is critical for triggering the neuroendocrine response to visual threats, there is uncertainty about the role of subcortical visual pathways in this process. Primates in general appear to depend less on subcortical visual pathways than other mammals. Yet, imaging studies continue to indicate a role for the superior colliculus and pulvinar nucleus in fear activation, despite disconnects in how these brain structures communicate not only with each other but with the amygdala. Studies in fish and amphibians suggest that the neuroendocrine response to visual threats has remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, yet there are still significant data gaps with respect to how visual information is relayed to telencephalic areas homologous to the CeA, particularly in fish. In fact ray finned fishes may have evolved an entirely different mechanism for relaying visual information to the telencephalon. In part because they lack a pathway homologous to the lateral geniculate-striate cortex pathway of mammals, amphibians continue to be an excellent model for studying how stress hormones in turn modulate fear activating visual pathways. Glucocorticoids, melanocortin peptides, and CRF all appear to play some role in modulating sensorimotor processing in the optic tectum. These observations, coupled with data showing control of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis by the superior colliculus, suggest a fear/stress/anxiety neuroendocrine circuit that begins with first order synapses in subcortical visual pathways. Thus, comparative studies shed light not only on how fear triggering visual pathways came to be, but how hormones released as a result of this activation modulate these pathways.

Indexed as

amphibiananxietyfearfishoptic tectumstresssuperior colliculus

Identifiers

PMID26578871
PMCPMC4624861
OpenAlexW1842802220

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.