Our lab focuses on exploring the brain circuits underlying fear, memory, and relapse. More specifically,we want to understand the circuits that inhibit pathological fear. By exploring this phenomenon in the brain, we can then uncover the biological essence of who we are.
We utilize chemogenetics, electrophysiology, and calcium imaging in awake, behaving animals to complete our research. By using these cutting-edge technologies, we can manipulate and monitor neural activity in real-time, which helps us figure out how different brain regions talk to each other and control emotions and memories. Our goal is to use this knowledge to develop new treatments for anxiety disorders and PTSD.
Our Principal Investigator is Stephen Maren.
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Contextual Control of Extinction
Extinction-based therapies try to reduce and eliminate unwanted emotions or behaviors. In the Maren Lab, we use this type of therapy to reduce fear in patients with fear and anxiety disorders. We are trying to decrease the probability of relapse within these patients by mapping the neural circuits involved in extinction fear and memory relapse and studying the connections between the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex.
Stress and Extinction Learning
Post-traumatic stress disorder patients are vulnerable to relapse because they have a harder time eliminating fear responses to their traumatic experiences. Through our studies, we have seen that extinction learning is impaired when it occurs soon after a trauma, also known as “immediate extinction deficit”. We have found that ocus coeruleus norepinephrine (LC-NE) released in the amygdala suppresses prefrontal cortical circuits involved in extinction learning.
Covert Capture of Fear Memory
What if traumatic memories could be erased to decrease the chance of relapsing? We have developed a behavioral procedure that allows us to retrieve hippocampal-dependent context memories, memories associated with specific contexts or environments. This allows us to study the neural mechanisms underlying memory retrieval and develop new therapeutic approaches for disorders like PTSD.