[Pharmacological support of exposure therapy in anxiety disorders. Animal experiment studies]

The fear-potentiated startle paradigm (i.e., the enhancement of the startle response in the presence of an aversive conditioned stimulus) is a valuable cross-species model for the study of the neuronal mechanisms underlying fear and anxiety as well as of the cognitive control of those aversive states. Walker et al. present data from a study in rats indicating that extinction of fear in the fear-potentiated startle paradigm is enhanced by the partial agonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor D-cycloserine (DCS). The authors therefore suggest tests of DCS in clinical trials as a potential pharmacotherapeutic adjuvant for exposition therapies in fear and anxiety disorders.