ArticleTranslational psychiatry2015
Fear learning circuitry is biased toward generalization of fear associations in posttraumatic stress disorder.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 113 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
113 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 219 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Network Centrality and Modularity of Structural Covariance Networks in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Multisite ENIGMA-PGC Study.Brain connectivity · 2023Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of conditioned fear generalization in anxiety-related disorders.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Neural signatures of conditioning, extinction learning, and extinction recall in posttraumatic stress disorder: a meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies.Psychological medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Fear learning and generalization during pandemic fear: How COVID-19-related anxiety affects classical fear conditioning with traumatic film clips.Journal of psychiatric research · 2022Trial
- CRH neurons in the dorsal bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (dBNST) mediate contextual fear generalization.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Amygdalostriatal transition zone neurons encode sustained cue responses to guide defensive behaviors.Neuron · 2026Article
- Functional brain imaging in posttraumatic stress disorder: a review.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Review
- Dissociable Neural Responses to Conditioned Social Threats are Modulated by Spatial Proximity in PTSD and MDD.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Neural mechanisms of fear memory precision and generalization: from auditory cortex to amygdala.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
- Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning in Rodents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Fear-Learning Sensitization After Severe Stress.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Dissociable Thalamocortical Circuit Disruptions During Contextual Fear Renewal in PTSD.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Stress-Enhanced Fear Learning (SEFL) Is Associated With Enhanced Reactivation of Fear Engrams in Caudal But Not Rostral Dentate Gyrus.Hippocampus · 2026Article
- Systemic delivery of synapsin-promoted caveolin-1 overexpression ameliorates pathological TDP-43-induced cognitive decline and neurodegenerative changes.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Functional Breakdown of Temporoparietal Junction Interaction in High-depression Individuals: Evidence from Multi-Metric Connectomics.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Generalization of fear learning is shaped by inhibitory sensory processing in mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A pilot study of brain correlates of long-term treatment with transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation in posttraumatic stress disorder.Journal of affective disorders reports · 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
- Epigenetic Basis of Stress-Induced Central Nervous System Disorders: Therapeutic Approaches.Biology · 2026Review
- Uncertainty and reward histories have distinct effects on decisions after wins and losses.Scientific reports · 2026Article
53 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Fear conditioning is an established model for investigating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, symptom triggers may vaguely resemble the initial traumatic event, differing on a variety of sensory and affective dimensions. We extended the fear-conditioning model to assess generalization of conditioned fear on fear processing neurocircuitry in PTSD. Military veterans (n=67) consisting of PTSD (n=32) and trauma-exposed comparison (n=35) groups underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during fear conditioning to a low fear-expressing face while a neutral face was explicitly unreinforced. Stimuli that varied along a neutral-to-fearful continuum were presented before conditioning to assess baseline responses, and after conditioning to assess experience-dependent changes in neural activity. Compared with trauma-exposed controls, PTSD patients exhibited greater post-study memory distortion of the fear-conditioned stimulus toward the stimulus expressing the highest fear intensity. PTSD patients exhibited biased neural activation toward high-intensity stimuli in fusiform gyrus (P<0.02), insula (P<0.001), primary visual cortex (P<0.05), locus coeruleus (P<0.04), thalamus (P<0.01), and at the trend level in inferior frontal gyrus (P=0.07). All regions except fusiform were moderated by childhood trauma. Amygdala-calcarine (P=0.01) and amygdala-thalamus (P=0.06) functional connectivity selectively increased in PTSD patients for high-intensity stimuli after conditioning. In contrast, amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex (P=0.04) connectivity selectively increased in trauma-exposed controls compared with PTSD patients for low-intensity stimuli after conditioning, representing safety learning. In summary, fear generalization in PTSD is biased toward stimuli with higher emotional intensity than the original conditioned-fear stimulus. Functional brain differences provide a putative neurobiological model for fear generalization whereby PTSD symptoms are triggered by threat cues that merely resemble the index trauma.
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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.