ArticleeLife2018
Dopamine neurons drive fear extinction learning by signaling the omission of expected aversive outcomes.
Article in eLife, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 93 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
93 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- "Anxiety and worry" induces fear transformation in cancer patients: an evidence-based exploration and theoretical consideration of the emotional evolution in tumor patients.BMC psychology · 2025Pooled it
- Multiple-context extinction strengthens fear suppression through hippocampal dopamine D2R-dependent memory updating.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Selective Dopamine Transporter Inhibition with CE-123 Promotes Fear Extinction and Alters the Basolateral Amygdala Proteome Following Fear Extinction in Adolescent Male Rats.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- A ventral striatal learning signal reflecting individual differences in the success of fear extinction.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
- Low Reward and Heightened Threat Neural Activity are Both Associated with Heightened Anhedonia: A Transdiagnostic Perspective.Research square · 2026Article
- Dopamine Response to Unexpected Aversive Outcomes Drives the Return of Extinguished Fear.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- The Timing of Attentional Distraction Matters in Facilitating Extinction of Trace Fear Memory.Experimental neurobiology · 2026Article
- A neural circuit basis for reward-induced suppression of fear generalization and enhancement of fear extinction.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Review
- Sense of agency and decision making.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- When Safety Fails to Update: Altered Dopamine Prediction Signals in Extinction-Deficient Mice.eNeuro · 2026Article
- Organizational Psychology Theories in Graduate Medical Education: A Narrative Review.HCA healthcare journal of medicine · 2026Review
- Article
- Leveraging Fiber Photometry to Decipher Neural Circuits Underlying Anxiety in Mice.Fundamental & clinical pharmacology · 2025Review
- Molecular Tools to Study and Control Dopaminergic Neurotransmission With Light.Medicinal research reviews · 2025Review
- Windows of change: Revisiting temporal and molecular dynamics of memory reconsolidation and persistence.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 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
- Dopamine prediction error signaling in a unique nigrostriatal circuit is critical for associative fear learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
33 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Extinction of fear responses is critical for adaptive behavior and deficits in this form of safety learning are hallmark of anxiety disorders. However, the neuronal mechanisms that initiate extinction learning are largely unknown. Here we show, using single-unit electrophysiology and cell-type specific fiber photometry, that dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are activated by the omission of the aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) during fear extinction. This dopamine signal occurred specifically during the beginning of extinction when the US omission is unexpected, and correlated strongly with extinction learning. Furthermore, temporally-specific optogenetic inhibition or excitation of dopamine neurons at the time of the US omission revealed that this dopamine signal is both necessary for, and sufficient to accelerate, normal fear extinction learning. These results identify a prediction error-like neuronal signal that is necessary to initiate fear extinction and reveal a crucial role of DA neurons in this form of safety learning.
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