ArticleTranslational psychiatry2018
Fasting enhances extinction retention and prevents the return of fear in humans.
Article in Translational psychiatry, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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
11 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of inhibition of reactivated alcohol-associated memories with propranolol on alcohol craving.BMC psychiatry · 2025Trial
- A systematic review of spontaneous recovery in human fear conditioning.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Ghrelin in Depression: A Promising Therapeutic Target.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Review
- Ghrelin receptor agonist MK0677 and overnight fasting do not rescue deficient fear extinction in 129S1/SvImJ mice.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- Article
- Long-Term Shaping of Corticostriatal Synaptic Activity by Acute Fasting.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- How Experiences Affect Psychological Responses During Supervised Fasting: A Preliminary Study.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Propranolol-induced inhibition of unconditioned stimulus-reactivated fear memory prevents the return of fear in humans.Translational psychiatry · 2020Article
- The Good, the Bad and the Unknown Aspects of Ghrelin in Stress Coping and Stress-Related Psychiatric Disorders.Frontiers in synaptic neuroscience · 2020Review
- Neuropeptides at the crossroad of fear and hunger: a special focus on neuropeptide Y.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2019Review
- Brain and Cognition for Addiction Medicine: From Prevention to Recovery Neural Substrates for Treatment of Psychostimulant-Induced Cognitive Deficits.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Fear is prone to return following extinction that is the basis of exposure therapy for fear-related disorders. Manipulations that enhance the extinction process can be beneficial for treatment. Animal studies have shown that fasting or caloric restriction can enhance extinction and inhibit the return of fear. The present study examined the effects of fasting on fear acquisition, extinction, and the return of fear in humans. One hundred and twenty-five male participants were randomized into a fasting group and food group and exposed to a Pavlovian fear conditioning paradigm. Changes in plasma cortisol and ghrelin levels were examined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. One-night fasting had no effect on fear acquisition but enhanced fear extinction retention and prevented the return of fear, and this effect persisted for at least 6 months. This procedure was also effective for remote fear memory. Plasma ghrelin levels were elevated after fasting and had a negative relationship with the fear response in spontaneous recovery test. However, overnight fasting did not affect cortisol levels. These findings indicate that fasting enhances extinction retention and prevents the return of fear, without influencing fear memory formation. We propose that this novel procedure may open new avenues for promoting extinction-based therapies for fear-related disorders.
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.