ArticleNeuroscience2022
Sex Differences In Avoidance Extinction After Contextual Fear Conditioning: Anxioescapic Behavior In Female Rats.
Article in Neuroscience, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Sex Differences on Conditioned Fear Extinction and Safety Learning in C57BL/6J Mice.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Estrous cycle stage gates the effect of stress on reward learning.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Female rats adopt a safety-first strategy in a high-conflict platform mediated avoidance task.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Sex-dependent role of hippocampal BDNF and GSK-3β in mediating PTSD-like behaviors in both sexes of adolescent rats exposed to fear conditioning, extinction, and reinstatement.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Generalization and extinction of platform-mediated avoidance in male and female rats.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effect of chronic alcohol exposure and single-prolonged stress on conditioned fear behavior.Behavioural brain research · 2025Article
- Sex-dependent effects of acute stress in adolescence or adulthood on appetitive motivation.Psychopharmacology · 2024Article
- A history of avoidance does not impact extinction learning in male rats.NPJ science of learning · 2024Article
- Article
- Fear-Conditioning to Unpredictable Threats Reveals Sex and Strain Differences in Rat Fear-Potentiated Startle (FPS).Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Sex differences in learning and performing the Go/NoGo tasks.Biology of sex differences · 2023Article
- Fear-conditioning to unpredictable threats reveals sex differences in rat fear-potentiated startle (FPS).bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Changes at glutamate tripartite synapses in the prefrontal cortex of a new animal model of resilience/vulnerability to acute stress.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
- Sex Differences in Behavior and Learning Abilities in Adult Rats.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Hippocampal neurogenesis facilitates cognitive flexibility in a fear discrimination task.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Neuroinflammation is a susceptibility factor in developing a PTSD-like phenotype.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Sex differences in fear responses: Neural circuits.Neuropharmacology · 2023Review
- A mild stressor induces short-term anxiety and long-term phenotypic changes in trauma-related behavior in female rats.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Adolescent alcohol exposure alters threat avoidance in adulthood.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Fear memories are important for survival and are implicated in the etiology of fear disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Fear memories are well studied pre-clinically and sex differences in rodent fear expression have been reported: females tend to freeze less than males. Whether this is a difference in fear learning or expression is debated. We aimed to differentiate between these possibilities with a task that allowed female rats to express fear memory by moving, rather than freezing. We assessed fear extinction after contextual fear conditioning in the isolated Shock Arm of a Y-maze in female and male rats by either placing them back in the isolated Shock Arm (Fear Extinction in the Shock Context) or allowing them to move freely in the Y-maze during extinction training and enter/avoid the Shock Arm (Avoidance Extinction). We confirmed that female rats freeze less than males during fear extinction in both settings. During Avoidance Extinction, however, both sexes had similar avoidance of the Shock Context, showing comparable fear memory and extinction. Additionally, female rats made more entries into the non-shock arms. Thus, female and male rats have similar fear learning but females express it with an active motor response. Furthermore, female rats also exhibited an active motor response under other anxiogenic conditions (Elevated Plus Maze) and had higher reactivity (Acoustic Startle Response) but not when fear-eliciting stimuli were present: cat hair and foot-shock. In summary, female rats have an active motor response to anxiogenic stimuli which we termed 'Anxioescapic' behavior strategy.
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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.