ReviewFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience2015
The Role of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex in the Conditioning and Extinction of Fear.
Review in Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 327 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
327 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Neuroimaging insights into the psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.Translational psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Deficits in hippocampal-dependent memory across different rodent models of early life stress: systematic review and meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Dopamine D2/3 receptors and functional connectivity during fear extinction: A PET-fMRI study.Neuroimage. Reports · 2026Article
- Fear conditioning enhances subsequent cocaine self-administration and amygdala neuronal activity only in male rats.Neuropharmacology · 2026Article
- Extinction-recruited prefrontal-hypothalamic pathway encodes positive affect to sustain fear extinction in posttraumatic stress mouse model.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2026Article
- A prelimbic cortex-lateral hypothalamus circuit regulates acquisition of alprazolam-induced conditioned place preference in male mice.Acta pharmacologica Sinica · 2026Article
- Aversive 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalization playback reveals differences in affective (dys)function following early life adversity in male and female juvenile rats.Behavioural brain research · 2026Article
- Mechanisms Underlying Pain Avoidance in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Observational
- Article
- Auditory conditioned fear elicits anxiety-like behavior and differential neuronal remodeling in the prelimbic and infralimbic cortex of rats.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Chemogenetic activation of the medial prefrontal cortex alleviates the impaired extinction of fear memory through the increase in the binding of EGR1 and TET1 in an animal model of PTSD.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Reduced MOV10 reveals novel functional cortical connections in an increased fear response.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- A novel interoceptive subfornical organ to infralimbic cortex mechanism relays airway inflammation effects on fear extinction.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2026Article
- Adolescent Stress Exposure: Behavioral Consequences and Molecular Mechanisms in Corticolimbic Networks.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning (SEFL) Is Associated With Enhanced Reactivation of Fear Engrams in Caudal But Not Rostral Dentate Gyrus.Hippocampus · 2026Article
- Cannabidiol modulates spontaneous recovery through distinct and conserved transcriptomic signatures in mPFC subregions.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Perirhinal cortex gains control of hippocampal seizures via broad downstream circuits in male mouse models.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- Pre-trauma cognitive traits predict fear generalization and associated prefrontal functioning in a longitudinal rodent model.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning (SEFL) is Associated with Enhanced Reactivation of Fear Engrams in Caudal but not Rostral Dentate Gyrus.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
267 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Once acquired, a fearful memory can persist for a lifetime. Although learned fear can be extinguished, extinction memories are fragile. The resilience of fear memories to extinction may contribute to the maintenance of disorders of fear and anxiety, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As such, considerable effort has been placed on understanding the neural circuitry underlying the acquisition, expression, and extinction of emotional memories in rodent models as well as in humans. A triad of brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala, form an essential brain circuit involved in fear conditioning and extinction. Within this circuit, the prefrontal cortex is thought to exert top-down control over subcortical structures to regulate appropriate behavioral responses. Importantly, a division of labor has been proposed in which the prelimbic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) subdivisions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regulate the expression and suppression of fear in rodents, respectively. Here, we critically review the anatomical and physiological evidence that has led to this proposed dichotomy of function within mPFC. We propose that under some conditions, the PL and IL act in concert, exhibiting similar patterns of neural activity in response to aversive conditioned stimuli and during the expression or inhibition of conditioned fear. This may stem from common synaptic inputs, parallel downstream outputs, or cortico-cortical interactions. Despite this functional covariation, these mPFC subdivisions may still be coding for largely opposing behavioral outcomes, with PL biased towards fear expression and IL towards suppression.
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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.