Pharmacological modulation of conditioned fear in the fear-potentiated startle test: a systematic review and meta-analysis of animal studies.

The fear-potentiated startle test appears to have moderate to high predictive validity and may serve as a valuable tool for the development of novel anxiolytics. Given the limited available data, the generally low study quality and high heterogeneity additional studies are warranted to corroborate the findings of this review.