ArticleNature communications2018
A dopaminergic switch for fear to safety transitions.
Article in Nature communications, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 98 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
98 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neural responses during extinction learning predict exposure therapy outcome in phobia: results from a randomized-controlled trial.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Trial
- Multiple-context extinction strengthens fear suppression through hippocampal dopamine D2R-dependent memory updating.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- A ventral striatal learning signal reflecting individual differences in the success of fear extinction.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
- Article
- Dopamine Response to Unexpected Aversive Outcomes Drives the Return of Extinguished Fear.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Dopamine in the ventral and tail of striatum supports global and local evaluation in reward-threat conflict.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Interdependency between oxytocin and dopamine in trust-based learning in mice.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Review
- Ventral pallidum GABA neuron inhibition augments context-appropriate defensive responses to learned threat cues.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Dynamic changes of dopamine neuron activity and plasticity at different stages of negative reinforcement learning.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Article
- Dopaminergic projections to the prefrontal cortex are critical for rapid threat avoidance learning.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Windows of change: Revisiting temporal and molecular dynamics of memory reconsolidation and persistence.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- High ovarian hormones present during fear extinction reduce fear relapse through a nigrostriatal dopamine pathway.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- How Fear Memory is Updated: From Reconsolidation to Extinction?Neuroscience bulletin · 2025Review
- Dopamine release and dopamine-related gene expression in the amygdala are modulated by the gastrin-releasing peptide in opposite directions during stress-enhanced fear learning and extinction.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Dopamine induces fear extinction by activating the reward-responding amygdala neurons.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Supervised and unsupervised learning reveal heroin-induced impairments in astrocyte structural plasticity.Science advances · 2025Article
- Dopamine prediction error signaling in a unique nigrostriatal circuit is critical for associative fear learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
38 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
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Overcoming aversive emotional memories requires neural systems that detect when fear responses are no longer appropriate so that they can be extinguished. The midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine system has been implicated in reward and more broadly in signaling when a better-than-expected outcome has occurred. This suggests that it may be important in guiding fear to safety transitions. We report that when an expected aversive outcome does not occur, activity in midbrain dopamine neurons is necessary to extinguish behavioral fear responses and engage molecular signaling events in extinction learning circuits. Furthermore, a specific dopamine projection to the nucleus accumbens medial shell is partially responsible for this effect. In contrast, a separate dopamine projection to the medial prefrontal cortex opposes extinction learning. This demonstrates a novel function for the canonical VTA-dopamine reward system and reveals opposing behavioral roles for different dopamine neuron projections in fear extinction learning.
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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.