CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 174Memory and Neural MechanismsNeuroscience and Neuropharmacology ResearchNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

Pharmacological treatments that facilitate extinction of fear: Relevance to psychotherapy

Open access
Davis, Michael, Myers, Karyn M., Chhatwal, Jasmeer, Ressler, Kerry J.·2006·NeuroRX
DOI 10.1016/j.nurx.2005.12.008PMC PMC2919202
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Summary A great deal is now known about the mechanisms of conditioned fear acquisition and expression. More recently, the mechanisms of inhibition of conditioned fear have become the subject of intensive study. The major model system for the study of fear inhibition in the laboratory is extinction, in which a previously fear conditioned organism is exposed repeatedly to the fear-eliciting cue in the absence of any aversive event and the fear conditioned response declines. It is well established that extinction is a form of new learning as opposed to forgetting or "unlearning" of conditioned fear, and it is hypothesized that extinction develops when sensory pathways conveying sensory information to the amygdala come to engage GABAergic interneurons through forms of experience-dependent plasticity such as long-term potentiation. Several laboratories currently are investigating methods of facilitating fear extinction in animals with the hope that such treatments might ultimately prove to be useful in facilitating exposure-based therapy for anxiety disorders in clinical populations. This review discusses the advances that have been made in this field and presents the findings of the first major clinical study to examine the therapeutic utility of a drug that facilitates extinction in animals. It is concluded that extinction is an excellent model system for the study of fear inhibition and an indispensable tool for the screening of putative pharmacotherapies for clinical use.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.nurx.2005.12.008

Cites

92 of 92 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Chemically blocking the receptor shortly before extinction training blocks extinction in animal research, showing a dose-response relation.

    “Chemically blocking the receptor shortly before extinction training blocks extinction in animal research, a finding that shows a dose-response relation.”

    From Mediators and Mechanisms of Change in Psychotherapy Research (2007) · cites this paper as Davis et al. 2006

  • Blocking the receptor after extinction training also blocks extinction, suggesting that the consolidation process can be interrupted.

    “Blocking the receptor after extinction training also blocks extinction, which suggests that the consolidation process can be interrupted.”

    From Mediators and Mechanisms of Change in Psychotherapy Research (2007) · cites this paper as Davis et al. 2006

  • Conditioning and extinction of fear depend on a particular receptor in the amygdala, N-methyl-D-aspartate.

    “Conditioning and extinction of fear depend on a particular receptor in the amygdala (N-methyl-D-aspartate) (see Davis et al. 2006).”

    From Mediators and Mechanisms of Change in Psychotherapy Research (2007) · cites this paper as Davis et al. 2006

  • D-cycloserine binds to the receptor and enhances extinction when given before or soon after extinction training.

    “A compound (D-cycloserine) binds to the receptor and makes the receptor work better, i.e., enhances extinction when given before or soon after extinction training.”

    From Mediators and Mechanisms of Change in Psychotherapy Research (2007) · cites this paper as Davis et al. 2006

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 93 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Davis M, File SE. Intrinsic and extrinsic habituation and sensiti- zation: implications for the design and interpretation of experi- ments. In: Habituation and the behaving organism (Peeke H, Pet- rinovich L, eds), pp 287-323. New York: Academic Press, 1984.
  2. Pavlov I. Conditioned reflexes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Davis, M., Myers, K. M., Chhatwal, J., & Ressler, K. J.
Affiliations
Emory University (US)
Corresponding author
Davis, Michael
ORCID
Venue
NeuroRX
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2006-01
Volume
3
Issue
1
Pages
82-96
ISSN
1545-5343 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.nurx.2005.12.008
PMC
PMC2919202
OpenAlex
W1988011200
Cited by
174
References
93
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 15
FWCI
1.31
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • NeuroRx (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • Emory University
  • National Institute of Mental Health (MH-047840, MH069884, F30MH070218, MH070218, K01MH069884)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM008169)
  • National Center for Research Resources (P51RR000165)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
fear extinction, fear conditioning, anxiety disorders, exposure therapy, amygdala, GABAergic interneurons, long-term potentiation, experience-dependent plasticity, fear inhibition
MeSH terms
Extinction, Psychological, Fear, Humans, Phobic Disorders, Psychotherapy, Receptors, Glutamate, Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists, Glutamic Acid

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review