Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29263408›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2017

Reinstatement of contextual conditioned anxiety in virtual reality and the effects of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in humans.

Hannah Genheimer, Marta Andreatta, Esther Asan, Paul Pauli

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
26citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
2.6field-weighted citation impact, top 10% 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

26 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 56 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation (ta-VNS) for Treatment of Drug-Resistant Epilepsy: A Randomized, Double-Blind Clinical Trial.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2023
    Trial
  3. Review
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  9. The gut-brain axis and cognitive control: A role for the vagus nerve.Seminars in cell & developmental biology · 2024
    Review
  10. Article
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  12. Measuring human context fear conditioning and retention after consolidation.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2023
    Article
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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

4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Hannah GenheimerDepartment of Psychology (Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy), University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany. hannah.genheimer@uni-wuerzburg.de.
Marta AndreattaDepartment of Psychology (Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy), University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-1217-8266
Esther AsanInstitute of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Paul PauliDepartment of Psychology (Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy), University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
University of Würzburg · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Since exposure therapy for anxiety disorders incorporates extinction of contextual anxiety, relapses may be due to reinstatement processes. Animal research demonstrated more stable extinction memory and less anxiety relapse due to vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). We report a valid human three-day context conditioning, extinction and return of anxiety protocol, which we used to examine effects of transcutaneous VNS (tVNS). Seventy-five healthy participants received electric stimuli (unconditioned stimuli, US) during acquisition (Day1) when guided through one virtual office (anxiety context, CTX+) but never in another (safety context, CTX-). During extinction (Day2), participants received tVNS, sham, or no stimulation and revisited both contexts without US delivery. On Day3, participants received three USs for reinstatement followed by a test phase. Successful acquisition, i.e. startle potentiation, lower valence, higher arousal, anxiety and contingency ratings in CTX+ versus CTX-, the disappearance of these effects during extinction, and successful reinstatement indicate validity of this paradigm. Interestingly, we found generalized reinstatement in startle responses and differential reinstatement in valence ratings. Altogether, our protocol serves as valid conditioning paradigm. Reinstatement effects indicate different anxiety networks underlying physiological versus verbal responses. However, tVNS did neither affect extinction nor reinstatement, which asks for validation and improvement of the stimulation protocol.

Indexed as

AdultAnxietyAnxiety DisordersArousalConditioning, ClassicalExtinction, PsychologicalFemaleHumansMaleMemoryReflex, StartleTranscutaneous Electric Nerve StimulationVagus NerveVagus Nerve StimulationVirtual RealityYoung Adult

Identifiers

PMID29263408
PMCPMC5738426
OpenAlexW2773445099

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.