ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2018
State-of-the-art and future directions for extinction as a translational model for fear and anxiety.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 125 papers, 4 of them syntheses 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
125 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 368 citations in OpenAlex.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) for virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET): A systematic review.Translational psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Cognitive behavioural therapy and third-wave approaches for anxiety and related disorders in older people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- A meta-analysis of conditioned fear generalization in anxiety-related disorders.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Fear conditioning and extinction in obsessive-compulsive disorder: A systematic review.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Feasibility of a Single-Session Electrodermal Biofeedback Intervention for State Anxiety.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2026Trial
- How Do Patients' Fear Prediction and Fear Experience Impact Exposure-Based Therapy for Panic Disorder With Agoraphobia? A Comprehensive Analysis of Fear Prediction.Depression and anxiety · 2025Trial
- Intermittent theta burst stimulation over the left prefrontal cortex: no additional effect for virtual reality exposure therapy in acrophobia-a randomized trial.Scientific reports · 2024Trial
- Virtual food exposure with positive mood induction or social support to reduce food anxiety in anorexia nervosa: A feasibility study.The International journal of eating disorders · 2024Trial
- Positive affect treatment targets reward sensitivity: A randomized controlled trial.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2023Trial
- Augmenting extinction learning with D-cycloserine reduces return of fear: a randomized, placebo-controlled fMRI study.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- Dopamine D2/3 receptors and functional connectivity during fear extinction: A PET-fMRI study.Neuroimage. Reports · 2026Article
- Menstrual Cycle Informed Psychotherapy: Preliminary Findings in Women with Spider Phobia.Psychotherapy and psychosomatics · 2026Article
- Cardiac vagal activity during in-vivo threat exposure is associated with within-session inhibition of fear and avoidance.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
- Therapist-guided virtual reality exposure therapy for fear of heights: evidence from a multiple-baseline single-case experimental design.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Effects of novelty and reward-based fear extinction on memory generalization.Behaviour research and therapy · 2026Article
- Mechanistic Non-Response After Psychotherapy for Anxiety Disorders: A Maintenance-Mechanism-Based Clinical Taxonomy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- A review and integration of models on delusion maintenance.Psychological medicine · 2026Review
- On the generality of behavioral theory and abstract phenomena.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2026Review
- Enhancing the Efficacy of Exposure Therapy: Translation of Pharmacological Augmentation of Fear Extinction.Annual review of clinical psychology · 2026Review
65 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Through advances in both basic and clinical scientific research, Pavlovian fear conditioning and extinction have become an exemplary translational model for understanding and treating anxiety disorders. Discoveries in associative and neurobiological mechanisms underlying extinction have informed techniques for optimizing exposure therapy that enhance the formation of inhibitory associations and their consolidation and retrieval over time and context. Strategies that enhance formation include maximizing prediction-error correction by violating expectancies, deepened extinction, occasional reinforced extinction, attentional control and removal of safety signals/behaviours. Strategies that enhance consolidation include pharmacological agonists of NMDA (i.e. d-cycloserine) and mental rehearsal. Strategies that enhance retrieval include multiple contexts, retrieval cues, and pharmacological blockade of contextual encoding. Stimulus variability and positive affect are posited to influence the formation and the retrieval of inhibitory associations. Inhibitory regulation through affect labelling is considered a complement to extinction. The translational value of extinction will be increased by more investigation of elements central to extinction itself, such as extinction generalization, and interactions with other learning processes, such as instrumental avoidance reward learning, and with other clinically relevant cognitive-emotional processes, such as self-efficacy, threat appraisal and emotion regulation, will add translational value. Moreover, framing fear extinction and related processes within a developmental context will increase their clinical relevance.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Of mice and mental health: facilitating dialogue between basic and clinical neuroscientists'.
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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.