ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2020
Anxiety and the Neurobiology of Temporally Uncertain Threat Anticipation.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 76 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
76 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 124 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pathological fear, anxiety and negative affect exhibit distinct neurostructural signatures: evidence from psychiatric neuroimaging meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Trial
- Resolving temporal threat uncertainty by observational learning involves the amygdala, hippocampus and anterior insula.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Severe PTSD symptoms magnify episodic memory-encoding deficits and amygdala-ACC attenuation during unpredictable threat in male combat veterans.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Diverging influences of punishment motivation and negative affect on cognitive control.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Understanding anxiety through uncertainty quantification.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2026Article
- Article
- Uncovering the correlation between neurotransmitter-specific functional connectivity and multidimensional anxiety in a non-clinical cohort.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- Integrated Representations of Threat and Controllability in the Lateral Frontal Pole.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2026Article
- Structural Brain Correlates of Childhood Inhibited Temperament: An ENIGMA-Anxiety Mega-Analysis.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2026Article
- How Temporal Predictability of Threat and Action Preparation Affect Defensive Freezing Responses.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Neural Control of Autonomic Arousal During Threat Anticipation Revealed by High-Resolution Cardiac Contractility.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Fear, anxiety, and the extended amygdala-absence of evidence for strict functional segregation.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- The influence of trait anxiety on performance in the CatWalk test.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Generalized Isometric Sustained Contraction During Apnea Combined with Relaxation for Anxiety: A First Evaluation.Clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health : CP & EMH · 2026Article
- From hidden springs to endless oceans: exploring the complementary roles of the amygdala and hippocampus in phenomenal experience.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Constructs of Acute and Potential Threat Differentially Associate With Pediatric Anxiety.JAACAP open · 2025Article
- Fear, anxiety, and the extended amygdala-bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Heightened subcortical reactivity to uncertain-threat is associated with future internalizing symptoms, conditional on stress exposure.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
16 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 7 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
When extreme, anxiety-a state of distress and arousal prototypically evoked by uncertain danger-can be debilitating. Uncertain anticipation is a shared feature of situations that elicit signs and symptoms of anxiety across psychiatric disorders, species, and assays. Despite the profound significance of anxiety for human health and wellbeing, the neurobiology of uncertain-threat anticipation remains unsettled. Leveraging a paradigm adapted from animal research and optimized for fMRI signal decomposition, we examined the neural circuits engaged during the anticipation of temporally uncertain and certain threat in 99 men and women. Results revealed that the neural systems recruited by uncertain and certain threat anticipation are anatomically colocalized in frontocortical regions, extended amygdala, and periaqueductal gray. Comparison of the threat conditions demonstrated that this circuitry can be fractionated, with frontocortical regions showing relatively stronger engagement during the anticipation of uncertain threat, and the extended amygdala showing the reverse pattern. Although there is widespread agreement that the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and dorsal amygdala-the two major subdivisions of the extended amygdala-play a critical role in orchestrating adaptive responses to potential danger, their precise contributions to human anxiety have remained contentious. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that these regions show statistically indistinguishable responses to temporally uncertain and certain threat anticipation. These observations provide a framework for conceptualizing anxiety and fear, for understanding the functional neuroanatomy of threat anticipation in humans, and for accelerating the development of more effective intervention strategies for pathological anxiety.
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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.