Trial reportBMC biology2017
An elevated plus-maze in mixed reality for studying human anxiety-related behavior.
Trial report in BMC biology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
80 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Emotion Recognition in Immersive Virtual Reality: From Statistics to Affective Computing.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Pooled it
- Physiological and Behavioural Characterisation of a Novel Steroid Sulfatase-Deficient Mouse.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2026Article
- Genetic Architecture of Addiction-Relevant Behaviors in Outbred Sprague-Dawley Rats Reveals Loci for Anxiety-Like and Nociceptive Traits.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2026Article
- Sex-specific relationships between stress coping and avoidance behavior in adult mice.Biology of sex differences · 2026Article
- Differential Adenosine Signaling and Effects of Acute Caffeine Exposure on Alternative Stress Coping Styles in Zebrafish (Danio rerio).Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Genetic Architecture of Addiction-Relevant Behaviors in Outbred Sprague-Dawley Rats Reveals Loci for Anxiety-Like and Nociceptive Traits.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Human approach-avoidance conflict behaviour relates to transdiagnostic psychiatric symptom dimensions.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Differential adenosine signaling and effects of acute caffeine exposure on alternative stress coping styles in zebrafish (bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Implementing reverse translational research in psychiatry.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sex-Dependent Effects of Rivastigmine on Melatonin Receptors in Middle-Aged Rats.Noro psikiyatri arsivi · 2026Article
- Approach-Avoidance Conflict Paradigms in Animal and Human Studies of Anxiety-A Narrative Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The downregulation of Autophagy in amygdala is sufficient to alleviate anxiety-like behaviors in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder model mice.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Carbon Monoxide in an Experimental Model of Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome: The Effects of CORM-A1 on Pain and Anxiety-Related Behaviors.Pathophysiology : the official journal of the International Society for Pathophysiology · 2025Article
- Escalating risk-taking is linked to emotional habituation.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Nandrolone alters the behavioral response to cocaine as well as striatal and cortical dopamine receptors of prepubertal male rats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Directed exploration is reduced by an aversive interoceptive state induction in healthy individuals but not in those with affective disorders.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Real-time fear emotion recognition in mice based on multimodal data fusion.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Directed exploration is reduced by an aversive interoceptive state induction in healthy individuals but not in those with affective disorders.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Hippocampal damage disrupts the latent decision-making processes underlying approach-avoidance conflict processing in humans.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Effects of diet and ovariectomy onBrain communications · 2025Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundA dearth of laboratory tests to study actual human approach-avoidance behavior has complicated translational research on anxiety. The elevated plus-maze (EPM) is the gold standard to assess approach-avoidance behavior in rodents.
methodsHere, we translated the EPM to humans using mixed reality through a combination of virtual and real-world elements. In two validation studies, we observed participants' anxiety on a behavioral, physiological, and subjective level.
resultsParticipants reported higher anxiety on open arms, avoided open arms, and showed an activation of endogenous stress systems. Participants' with high anxiety exhibited higher avoidance. Moreover, open arm avoidance was moderately predicted by participants' acrophobia and sensation seeking, with opposing influences. In a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled experiment, GABAergic stimulation decreased avoidance of open arms while alpha-2-adrenergic antagonism increased avoidance.
conclusionThese findings demonstrate cross-species validity of open arm avoidance as a translational measure of anxiety. We thus introduce the first ecologically valid assay to track actual human approach-avoidance behavior under laboratory conditions.
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