Trial reportNature communications2017
Endogenous opioids regulate social threat learning in humans.
Trial report in Nature communications, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Learning by observing: a systematic exploration of modulatory factors and the impact of observationally induced placebo and nocebo effects on treatment outcomes.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Pooled it
- Shared effects of the opioid antagonist naltrexone on first-hand and empathic pain.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Trial
- Beyond Sharing Unpleasant Affect-Evidence for Pain-Specific Opioidergic Modulation of Empathy for Pain.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2021Trial
- Naltrexone during pain conditioning: A double-blind placebo-controlled experimental trial.Molecular painTrial
- Resolving temporal threat uncertainty by observational learning involves the amygdala, hippocampus and anterior insula.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Oxytocin and opioid antagonists: A dual approach to improving social behavior.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Xenon gas as a potential treatment for opioid use disorder, alcohol use disorder, and related disorders.Medical gas research · 2025Review
- Opioid Regulation of Social Homeostasis: Connecting Loneliness to Addiction.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Neuropsychological mechanisms of observational learning in human placebo effects.Psychopharmacology · 2025Review
- Cortical representations of affective pain shape empathic fear in male mice.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Placebo and nocebo effect in pain.Handbook of clinical neurology · 2025Review
- Article
- A Brain-To-Brain Mechanism for Social Transmission of Threat Learning.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2023Article
- Hemispherically lateralized rhythmic oscillations in the cingulate-amygdala circuit drive affective empathy in mice.Neuron · 2023Article
- Transforming experiences: Neurobiology of memory updating/editing.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2023Review
- Watch and Learn: Vicarious Threat Learning across Human Development.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- Observation of others' painful heat stimulation involves responses in the spinal cord.Science advances · 2021Article
- The Role of Mu-Opioids for Reward and Threat Processing in Humans: Bridging the Gap from Preclinical to Clinical Opioid Drug Studies.Current addiction reports · 2021Review
- Enhanced social learning of threat in adults with autism.Molecular autism · 2020Article
- The neural and computational systems of social learning.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many fearful expectations are shaped by observation of aversive outcomes to others. Yet, the neurochemistry regulating social learning is unknown. Previous research has shown that during direct (Pavlovian) threat learning, information about personally experienced outcomes is regulated by the release of endogenous opioids, and activity within the amygdala and periaqueductal gray (PAG). Here we report that blockade of this opioidergic circuit enhances social threat learning through observation in humans involving activity within the amygdala, midline thalamus and the PAG. In particular, anticipatory responses to learned threat cues (CS) were associated with temporal dynamics in the PAG, coding the observed aversive outcomes to other (observational US). In addition, pharmacological challenge of the opioid receptor function is classified by distinct brain activity patterns during the expression of conditioned threats. Our results reveal an opioidergic circuit that codes the observed aversive outcomes to others into threat responses and long-term memory in the observer.
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.