ArticleBiological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging2020
Estradiol Modulates Neural and Behavioral Arousal in Women With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder During a Fear Learning and Extinction Task.
Article in Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neurobiological Alterations in Females With PTSD: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Hormonal mechanisms of women's risk in the face of traumatic stress.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Trial
- 17β-Estradiol alleviates cognitive deficits by modulating fear memory reconsolidation in a PTSD rat model.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- PACAP associated with precise PTSD and fear extinction response in women.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Estradiol levels are differentially associated with pulse wave velocity in trauma-exposed premenopausal women with and without PTSD.American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology · 2025Article
- Activation of GPER1 by G1 prevents PTSD-like behaviors in mice: Illustrating the mechanisms from BDNF/TrkB to mitochondria and synaptic connection.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2024Article
- The role of neurosteroids in posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorder: A review of 10 years of clinical literature and treatment implications.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2024Review
- Role of estrogen in sex differences in memory, emotion and neuropsychiatric disorders.Molecular biology reports · 2024Review
- Stress-related cellular pathophysiology as a crosstalk risk factor for neurocognitive and psychiatric disorders.BMC neuroscience · 2023Review
- Recent advances in the role of miRNAs in post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.Molecular psychiatry · 2023Review
- Sex differences in fear responses: Neural circuits.Neuropharmacology · 2023Review
- Revisiting sex differences in the acquisition and extinction of threat conditioning in humans.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2022Article
- The role of the immune system in posttraumatic stress disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2022Review
- Impact of exogenous estradiol on task-based and resting-state neural signature during and after fear extinction in healthy women.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2021Article
- Aerobic exercise reduces anxiety and fear ratings to threat and increases circulating endocannabinoids in women with and without PTSD.Mental health and physical activity · 2021Article
- Differential relationships of PTSD symptom clusters with cortical thickness and grey matter volumes among women with PTSD.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- The Role of Estrogen Receptors and Their Signaling across Psychiatric Disorders.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Review
- Menstrual Cycle Dynamics and Their Impact on Psychotherapy: Insights From a Mixed-Methods Study.Clinical psychology & psychotherapyArticle
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4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
backgroundFear responding in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is sexually heterogeneous and varies with hormonal fluctuations throughout the menstrual cycle. While research suggests that estrogen levels affect PTSD symptoms among women, there is a dearth of research on modulatory effects of estrogen on fear responding among women with PTSD, and neural outcome measures are lacking.
methodsA sample of 42 women with PTSD underwent 2 consecutive alternating blocks of fear conditioning and extinction training, during which a CS+ conditioned stimulus, but not a CS-, predicted the occurrence of an electric shock in an acquisition context but not in an extinction context. Assayed saliva determined estradiol levels. Skin conductance response and whole-brain voxelwise activity during functional magnetic resonance imaging were outcome variables in linear mixed-effects models, with estradiol level, PTSD severity, and task contrasts as predictors.
resultsSkin conductance response exhibited a significant estradiol × PTSD severity × habituation interaction (t = 3.180, p = .002), such that PTSD severity was correlated with increased arousal responding between training blocks among women with lower estradiol (t = -3.985, p < .001) but not higher estradiol (t = 0.550, p = .583). Voxelwise activity also demonstrated an identical three-way interaction within dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and anterior insula clusters. The skin conductance response and imaging interactions between PTSD severity and estradiol were not specific to conditioned stimulus type or context.
conclusionsEstradiol moderated the relationship between PTSD severity and arousal response habituation between fear conditioning and extinction training sessions, such that high estradiol protected against the negative impact of severe PTSD symptoms on fear habituation. These findings suggest that estrogen enhances habituation among women with severe PTSD, potentially influencing the efficacy of extinction-based therapies.
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