ArticleBehaviour research and therapy2022
Acquisition, extinction, and return of fear in veterans in intensive outpatient prolonged exposure therapy: A fear-potentiated startle study.
Article in Behaviour research and therapy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Functional neuroimaging of fatty acid amide hydrolase inhibition in posttraumatic stress disorder: a randomized clinical trial.Translational psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Therapeutic intensification in post-traumatic stress disorder worldwide: where do we stand?European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Review
- MDMA alters fear extinction, and reduces alcohol consumption in inbred alcohol preferring iP rats but not outbred Wistar rats.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Chemogenetic activation of the medial prefrontal cortex alleviates the impaired extinction of fear memory through the increase in the binding of EGR1 and TET1 in an animal model of PTSD.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- A systematic review of spontaneous recovery in human fear conditioning.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Use of Single Prolonged Stress to Model Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Rodents: What We Found and Where to Next?Current neuropharmacology · 2026Review
- Leveraging biosensors in clinical and research settings: a guide to device selection.NPP - digital psychiatry and neuroscience · 2025Review
- Genetic and Environmental Influences on Fear Learning and Generalization.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- The impact of distal stress on the spontaneous recovery of conditioned defensive responses.Neurobiology of stress · 2025Article
- The METEMP protocol: Massed exposure therapy enhanced with MDMA for PTSD.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2025Article
- The effects of spaced versus massed extinction training on extinction retention of conditioned fear learning in male rats.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Targeted memory reactivation during sleep improves emotional memory modulation following imagery rescripting.Translational psychiatry · 2024Article
- Unconditioned response to a naturally aversive stimulus is associated with sensitized defensive responding and self-reported fearful traits in a PTSD sample.Psychophysiology · 2024Article
- The Psychedelic Future of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment.Current neuropharmacology · 2024Review
- HIV Interacts with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder to Impact Fear Psychophysiology in Trauma-Exposed Black Women.Women's health reports (New Rochelle, N.Y.) · 2024Article
- Comorbid treatment of traumatic brain injury and mental health disorders.NeuroRehabilitation · 2024Review
- The fear that remains: Associations between trauma, related psychopathology, and fear-potentiated startle in youth resettled as refugees.Developmental psychobiology · 2023Article
- Skin Conductance Reactivity as a Predictor of Stroke-induced Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms: A Dimensional Approach.Depression and anxiety · 2023Article
- Getting Better with Age? A Review of Psychophysiological Studies of Fear Extinction Learning Across Development.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Review
- Fear Extinction Learning in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Prolonged exposure (PE) therapy is a first-line treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and involves repeated presentation of trauma-related cues without aversive outcomes. A primary learning mechanism of PE is fear extinction (new learning that a dangerous cue is now safe) and its retention (maintaining this new learning over time). Extant research suggests extinction is impaired in PTSD patients. In this study, we employed an established fear-potentiated startle-based paradigm to examine fear acquisition, extinction learning and retention before and after completion of intensive outpatient treatment. First, PTSD patients undergoing PE (n = 55) were compared to trauma-exposed patients without PTSD (n = 57). We identified excessive fear in PTSD patients during acquisition and extinction before treatment compared to non-PTSD patients. At post-treatment, we examined the return of fear after extinction in PTSD patients showing high or low treatment response to PE (≥50% change in PTSD symptom severity vs. < 50%). High PE responders maintained fear extinction learning whereas low PE responders showed significant return of fear at post-treatment. These results replicate and extend previous findings of impaired extinction in PTSD and provide support for the proposed theoretical link between fear extinction and PE response.
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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.