ArticleScientific reports2020
Promoting long-term inhibition of human fear responses by non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation during extinction training.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sorting the mind: cognitive enhancement through transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation may improve cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric diseases-a systematic review.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Cardiac vagal activity during in-vivo threat exposure is associated with within-session inhibition of fear and avoidance.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- A pilot study of brain correlates of long-term treatment with transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation in posttraumatic stress disorder.Journal of affective disorders reports · 2026Article
- A Review of Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Disease: Comprehensive Theory and Evidence for Mechanisms of Action.Comprehensive physiology · 2026Review
- Distinct representational properties of cues and contexts shape fear and reversal learning.eLife · 2026Article
- A systematic review of spontaneous recovery in human fear conditioning.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Representational dynamics during extinction of fear memories in the human brain.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Treating Emotional Dysregulation and Inflammation in Common Neuropsychiatric Disorders.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Local and network neural activations and their associations with sleep parameters during threat conditioning and extinction in persons with Generalized Anxiety Disorder with and without Insomnia Disorder.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Article
- Ready for translation: non-invasive auricular vagus nerve stimulation inhibits psychophysiological indices of stimulus-specific fear and facilitates responding to repeated exposure in phobic individuals.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Enhances Emotional Processing and Long-Term Recognition Memory: Electrophysiological Evidence Across Two Studies.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in healthy individuals, stroke, and Parkinson's disease: a narrative review of safety, parameters, and efficacy.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Review
- A vagal route to memory: evidence from invasive and non-invasive electrical vagus nerve stimulation studies and areas for future clinical application.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Review
- A pooled analysis of the side effects of non-invasive Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation (taVNS).Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neuropsychobiology of fear-induced bradycardia in humans: progress and pitfalls.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- Ascending Vagal Sensory and Central Noradrenergic Pathways Modulate Retrieval of Passive Avoidance Memory in Male Rats.Journal of neuroscience research · 2024Article
- Effects of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation on the P300: Do Stimulation Duration and Stimulation Type Matter?Brain sciences · 2024Article
- REM disruption and REM Vagal Activity Predict Extinction Recall in Trauma-Exposed Individuals.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Inhibiting fear-related thoughts and defensive behaviors when they are no longer appropriate to the situation is a prerequisite for flexible and adaptive responding to changing environments. Such inhibition of defensive systems is mediated by ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), limbic basolateral amygdala (BLA), and brain stem locus-coeruleus noradrenergic system (LC-NAs). Non-invasive, transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) has shown to activate this circuit. Using a multiple-day single-cue fear conditioning and extinction paradigm, we investigated long-term effects of tVNS on inhibition of low-level amygdala modulated fear potentiated startle and cognitive risk assessments. We found that administration of tVNS during extinction training facilitated inhibition of fear potentiated startle responses and cognitive risk assessments, resulting in facilitated formation, consolidation and long-term recall of extinction memory, and prevention of the return of fear. These findings might indicate new ways to increase the efficacy of exposure-based treatments of anxiety disorders.
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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.