Paper We're Discussing:

Gabriel DBK, Crilow KR, Sangha S. Second-order conditioning of safety in male and female rats. (2026) Behav Brain Res. 504:116059.

Previously:

Lovibond PF, Chow JYL, Lee JC. Retardation of acquisition after conditioned inhibition and latent inhibition training in human causal learning. (2023) J Exp Psychol Anim Learn Cogn. 49(2):75-86.

Bratsch-Prince J.X., Warren III J.W., Jones G.C., McDonald A.J., Mott D.D. (2024) Acetylcholine Engages Distinct Amygdala Microcircuits to Gate Internal Theta Rhythm. J Neurosci: 44 (17) e1568232024.

Catherine E. Ubri, Anthony M. Farrugia, Akiva S. Cohen (2025) Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Impairs Fear Extinction and Network Excitability in the Infralimbic Cortex. J Neurotrauma 42:1868.

Carty JRE, Devarakonda K, O'Connor RM, Krek A, Espinoza D, Jimenez-Gonzalez M, Alvarsson A, Hampton RF, Li R, Qiu Y, Petri S, Shtekler A, Rajbhandari A, Conner K, Bayne M, Garibay D, Martin J, Lehmann V, Wang L, Beaumont K, Kurland I, Yuan GC, Kenny PJ, Stanley SA. (2025) Amygdala-liver signalling orchestrates glycaemic responses to stress. Nature. Sep 3.

Cai L.X., Pizano K., Gundersen G.W., Hayes C.L., Fleming W.T., Holt S., Cox J.M., Witten I.B. (2020) Distinct signals in medial and lateral VTA dopamine neurons modulate fear extinction at different times. eLife 9:e54936.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.54936

Mueller-Buehl, C., Pakusch, J., Bader, V. et al. (2025) Combined loss of brevican, neurocan, tenascin-C and tenascin-R leads to impaired fear retrieval due to perineuronal net loss. Sci Rep 15, 5528. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-89580-2

Zhang X., Flick K., Rizzo M., Pignatelli M., Tonegawa S. (2025) Dopamine induces fear extinction by activating the reward-responding amygdala neurons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 6;122(18):e2501331122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2501331122

Adkins JM, Halcomb CJ, Rogers D, Jasnow AM. Stress and sex-dependent effects on conditioned inhibition of fear. Learn Mem. 2022 Sep 2;29(9):246-255. doi: 10.1101/lm.053508.121.

Xin, W., Kaneko, M., Roth, R.H. et al. (2024) Oligodendrocytes and myelin limit neuronal plasticity in visual cortex. Nature 633, 856–863. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07853-8

Krueger JN, Patel NN, Shim K, Ng K, Sangha S. (2024) Conditioned inhibition of fear and reward in male and female rats. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 208:107881. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2023.107881.

Dallérac, G., Graupner, M., Knippenberg, J. et al. (2017( Updating temporal expectancy of an aversive event engages striatal plasticity under amygdala control. Nat Commun 8, 13920. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13920

Kim R., Ananth M.R., Desai N.S., Role L.W., Talmage D.A. (2024) Distinct subpopulations of ventral pallidal cholinergic projection neurons encode valence of olfactory stimuli. Cell Reports 43: 114009 https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(24)00337-1.pdf#page18

Gu X., Johansen J.P. (2024) Prefrontal encoding of an internal model for emotional inference. BioRxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.22.590529

Li HQ, Jiang W, Ling L, Pratelli M, Chen C, Gupta V, Godavarthi SK, Spitzer NC. (2024) Generalized fear after acute stress is caused by change in neuronal cotransmitter identity. Science. 383:1252-1259. doi: 10.1126/science.adj5996.

Zhang X, Liu Y, Hong X, Li X, Meshul CK, Moore C, Yang Y, Han Y, Li WG, Qi X, Lou H, Duan S, Xu TL, Tong X. (2021) NG2 glia-derived GABA release tunes inhibitory synapses and contributes to stress-induced anxiety. Nat Commun. 12(1):5740. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25956-y.

Zhu F, Elnozahy S, Lawlor J, Kuchibhotla KV. The cholinergic basal forebrain provides a parallel channel for state-dependent sensory signaling to auditory cortex. (2023) Nat Neurosci. 26:810-819. doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01289-5.

Yamada J, Maeda S, Tojo M, Hayashida M, Iinuma KM, Jinno S. (2023) Altered regulation of oligodendrocytes associated with parvalbumin neurons in the ventral hippocampus underlies fear generalization in male mice. Neuropsychopharm. 48:1668-1679. doi: 10.1038/s41386-023-01611-6.

Sun W, Liu Z, Jiang X, Chen MB, Dong H, Liu J, Südhof TC, Quake SR. (2024) Spatial transcriptomics reveal neuron-astrocyte synergy in long-term memory. Nature. Mar;627(8003):374-381. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-07011-6

Walker EY, Pohl S, Denison RN, Barack DL, Lee J, Block N, Ma WJ, Meyniel F. (2023) Studying the neural representations of uncertainty. Nature Neuroscience, 10.1038/s41593-023-01444-y

Asokan M.M., Watanabe Y., Kimchi E.Y., Polley D.B. (2023) Potentiation of cholinergic and corticofugal inputs to the lateral amygdala in threat learning. Cell Reports 42: 113167.

Yu H, Chen L, Lei H, Pi G, Xiong R, Jiang T, Wu D, Sun F, Gao Y, Li Y, Peng W, Huang B, Song G, Wang X, Lv J, Jin Z, Ke D, Yang Y, Wang JZ. (2022) Infralimbic medial prefrontal cortex signalling to calbindin 1 positive neurons in posterior basolateral amygdala suppresses anxiety- and depression-like behaviours. Nat Commun. 13:5462.

Cummings KA, Bayshtok S, Dong TN, Kenny PJ, Clem RL. (2022) Control of fear by discrete prefrontal GABAergic populations encoding valence-specific information. Neuron, doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.07.004.

Yanpallewar S, Tomassoni-Ardori F, Palko ME, Hong Z, Kiris E, Becker J, Fulgenzi G, Tessarollo L. (2022) TrkA-cholinergic signaling modulates fear encoding and extinction learning in PTSD-like behavior. Transl Psychiatry 12(1):111.

Ben-Ami Bartal I, Rodgers DA, Bernardez Sarria MS, Decety J, Mason P. (2014) Pro-social behavior in rats is modulated by social experience. Elife 3:e01385

Huggins A.A, Weis C.N., Parisi E.A., Bennett K.P., Miskovic V., Larson C.L. (2021) Neural substrates of human fear generalization: A 7T-fMRI investigation. Neuroimage 239: 118308.

Fu X, Teboul E, Weiss GL, Antonoudiou P, Borkar CD, Fadok JP, Maguire J, Tasker JG. (2022) Gq neuromodulation of BLA parvalbumin interneurons induces burst firing and mediates fear-associated network and behavioral state transition in mice. Nat Comm 13: 1290.

LA Osso, KA Rankin, JR Chan (2021) Experience-dependent myelination following stress is mediated by the neuropeptide dynorphin Neuron 109: 3619-3632.e5

Rachel A. Walker, Rebecca L. Suthard, Taylor N. Perison, Nora M. Sheehan, Caitlin C. Dwyer, Jillian K. Lee, Eghosa K. Enabulele, Madelyn H. Ray and Michael A. McDannald (2022) Dorsal raphe 5-HT neurons utilize, but do not generate, negative aversive prediction errors eNeuro. 0132-21.2022

Joffe ME, Maksymetz J, Luschinger JR, Dogra S, Ferranti AS, Luessen DJ, Gallinger IM, Xiang Z, Branthwaite H, Melugin PR, Williford KM, Centanni SW, Shields BC, Lindsley CW, Calipari ES, Siciliano CA, Niswender CM, Tadross MR, Winder DG, Conn PJ. (2022) Acute restraint stress redirects prefrontal cortex circuit function through mGlu 5 receptor plasticity on somatostatin-expressing interneurons. Neuron S0896-6273: 01044-8.

Sánchez-Bellot C, AlSubaie R, Mishchanchuk K, Wee RWS, MacAskill AF. (2022) Two opposing hippocampus to prefrontal cortex pathways for the control of approach and avoidance behaviour. Nat Comm 13: 339

Whittle N, Fadok J, MacPherson KP, Nguyen R, Botta P, Wolff SBE, Müller C, Herry C, Tovote P, Holmes A, Singewald N, Lüthi A, Ciocchi S. (2021) Central amygdala micro-circuits mediate fear extinction. Nat Comm 12: 4156

Lazic SE. (2010) The problem of pseudoreplication in neuroscientific studies: is it affecting your analysis? BMC Neurosci 11:5.

Yu W, Pati D, Pina MM, Schmidt KT, Boyt KM, Hunker AC, Zweifel LS, McElligott ZA, Kash TL (2021) Periaqueductal gray/dorsal raphe dopamine neurons contribute to sex differences in pain-related behaviors. Neuron 109:1365-1380.

Benamer N, Vidal M, Balia M, Angulo MC. (2020) Myelination of parvalbumin interneurons shapes the function of cortical sensory inhibitory circuits. Nat Communications 11:5151.

Cai LX, Pizano K, Gundersen GW, Hayes CL, Fleming WT, Holt S, Cox JM, Witten IB. (2020) Distinct signals in medial and lateral VTA dopamine neurons modulate fear extinction at different times. eLife: 9:e54936. doi:10.7554/eLife.54936.

Shine JM, Müller EJ, Munn B, Cabral J, Moran RJ, Breakspear M. (2021)
Computational models link cellular mechanisms of neuromodulation to large-scale neural dynamics. Nat Neurosci. doi: 10.1038/s41593-021-00824-6.

Khalighinejad N, Bongioanni A, Verhagen L, Folloni D, Attali D, Aubry JF, Sallet J, Rushworth MFS. (2020) A Basal Forebrain-Cingulate Circuit in Macaques Decides It Is Time to Act. Neuron 105: 37-384.

Sohn JMB, de Souza STF, Raymundi AM, Bonato J, de Oliveira RMW, Prickaerts J, Stern CA. (2020) Persistence of the extinction of fear memory requires late-phase cAMP/PKA signaling in the infralimbic cortex. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 172:107244.

Kim CK, Sanchez MI, Hoerbelt P., Fenno LE, Malenka RC, Deisseroth K, Ting AY (2020) A Molecular Calcium Integrator Reveals a Striatal Cell Type Driving Aversion. Cell 183: 2003-2019.

Pan S., Mayoral S.R., Choi H.S., Chan J.R., Kheirbek M. (2020) Preservation of a remote fear memory requires new myelin formation. Nat. Neurosci 23: 487-499.

Qin C, Bian XL, Wu HY, Xian JY, Cai CY, Lin YH, Zhou Y, Kou XL, Chang L, Luo CX, Zhu DY. (2020) Dorsal Hippocampus to Infralimbic Cortex Circuit is Essential for the Recall of Extinction Memory. Cereb Cortex Nov 14;bhaa320.

Cho KKA, Davidson TJ, Bouvier G, Marshall JD, Schnitzer MJ, Sohal VS. (2020) Cross-hemispheric gamma synchrony between prefrontal parvalbumin interneurons supports behavioral adaptation during rule shift learning. Nat Neurosci. 23:892-902.

Companion discussion paper:

Buzsáki G, Schomburg EW. (2015) What does gamma coherence tell us about inter-regional neural communication? Nat Neurosci.18:484-9.

Lovett-Barron M, Chen R, Bradbury S, Andalman AS, Wagle M, Guo S, Deisseroth K. (2020) Multiple convergent hypothalamus-brainstem circuits drive defensive behavior. Nat Neurosci.

McMurray KMJ, Gray A, Horn P, Sah R. (2020) High Behavioral Sensitivity to Carbon Dioxide Associates with Enhanced Fear Memory and Altered Forebrain Neuronal Activation. Neuroscience 429: 92-105.

Day HLL, Suwansawang S, Halliday DM, Stevenson CW. (2020) Sex differences in auditory fear discrimination are associated with altered medial prefrontal cortex function. Sci Rep. 10:6300.

van Holstein M., MacLeod P.E., Floresco S. (2019) Basolateral amygdala - nucleus accumbens circuitry regulates optimal cue-guided risk/reward decision making. Prog Neuropsychopharm and Biol Psych. 98: 109830.

Dolensek N, Gehrlach DA, Klein AS, Gogolla N. (2020) Facial expressions of emotion states and their neuronal correlates in mice. Science 368 :89-94.

Dabney W., Kurth-Nelson Z., Uchida N., Starkweather C.K., Hassabis D., Munos R., Botvinick M. (2020) A Distributional Code for Value in Dopamine-Based Reinforcement Learning. Nature 577: 671-675.

Gao C, Leng Y, Ma J, Rooke V, Rodriguez-Gonzalez S, Ramakrishnan C, Deisseroth K, Penzo MA. (2020) Two genetically, anatomically and functionally distinct cell types segregate across anteroposterior axis of paraventricular thalamus. Nat Neurosci. 23:217-228.

Zhang B, Ma S, Rachmin I, He M, Baral P, Choi S, Gonçalves WA, Shwartz Y, Fast EM, Su Y, Zon LI, Regev A, Buenrostro JD, Cunha TM, Chiu IM, Fisher DE, Hsu YC. (2020) Hyperactivation of sympathetic nerves drives depletion of melanocyte stem cells. Nature 577:676-681.

Scheggia D, Managò F, Maltese F, Bruni S, Nigro M, Dautan D, Latuske P, Contarini G, Gomez-Gonzalo M, Requie LM, Ferretti V, Castellani G, Mauro D, Bonavia A, Carmignoto G, Yizhar O, Papaleo F. Somatostatin interneurons in the prefrontal cortex control affective state discrimination in mice (2020) Nature Neurosci 23:47-60.

Blume R.S., Padival M., Urban J.H., Rosenkranz A.J. (2019) Disruptive effects of repeated stress on basolateral amygdala neurons and fear behavior across the estrous cycle. Sci Rep 9:12292. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6707149/

Forkosh O, Karamihalev S, Roeh S, Alon U, Anpilov S, Touma C, Nussbaumer M, Flachskamm C, Kaplick PM, Shemesh Y, Chen A.(2019) Identity domains capture individual differences from across the behavioral repertoire. Nature Neuroscience. Nov. 4.

Kasugai Y, Vogel E, Hörtnagl H, Schönherr S, Paradiso E, Hauschild M, Göbel G, Milenkovic I, Peterschmitt Y, Tasan R, Sperk G, Shigemoto R, Sieghart W, Singewald N, Lüthi A, Ferraguti F. (2019) Structural and Functional Remodeling of Amygdala GABAergic Synapses in Associative Fear Learning. Neuron 104:1-14.

Smith EH, Horga G, Yates MJ, Mikell CB, Banks GP, Pathak YJ, Schevon CA, McKhann II GM, Hayden BY, Botvinick MM, Sheth SA. (2019) Widespread temporal coding of cognitive control in the human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuro, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0494-0

Du. J., Price M.P., Taugher R.J., Gigsby D., Ash J.J., Stark A.C., Saad M.Z.H., Singh K., Mandal J., Wemmie J.A., Welsh M.J. (2017) Transient acidosis while retrieving a fear-related memory enhances its lability. eLife;6:e22564.

Hasan MT, Althammer F, Silva da Gouveia M, Goyon S, Eliava M, Lefevre A, Kerspern D, Schimmer J, Raftogianni A, Wahis J, Knobloch-Bollmann HS, Tang Y, Liu X, Jain A, Chavant V, Goumon Y, Weislogel JM, Hurlemann R, Herpertz SC, Pitzer C, Darbon P, Dogbevia GK, Bertocchi I, Larkum ME, Sprengel R, Bading H, Charlet A, Grinevich V. (2019) A Fear Memory Engram and Its Plasticity in the Hypothalamic Oxytocin System. Neuron.103:133-146.e8.

Yaeger CE, Ringach DL, Trachtenberg JT. (2019) Neuromodulatory control of localized dendritic spiking in critical period cortex. Nature 567:100-104.

Stephenson-Jones M., Bravo-Rivera C., Ahrens S., Furlan A., Ferndandes-Henriques C., Li B. bioRxiv preprint, posted 3/31/19. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/594887v1

Falkner AL, Grosenick L, Davidson TJ, Deisseroth K, Lin D. (2016) Hypothalamic control of male aggression seeking behavior. Nat Neurosci 19:596.

Zhang K., Chen CD, Monosov IE (2019) Novelty, Salience, and Surprise Timing are Signaled by Neurons in the Basal Forebrain. Current Biology 29:134.

Baek J, Lee S, Cho T, Kim SW, Kim M, Yoon Y, Kim KK, Byun J, Kim SJ, Jeong J, Shin HS. (2019) Neural Circuits Underlying a Psycho-therapeutic Regimen for Fear Disorders. Nature, 566: 339.

Pryluk R., Kfir Y., Gelbard-Sagiv H., Fried I., Paz R. (2019) A Tradeoff in the Neural Code Between Regions and Species. Cell 176: 597-609.

Popper, K. (1935) Theory. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York: Routledge Classics.

Ronovsky M, Zambon A, Cicvaric A, Boehm V, Hoesel B, Moser BA, Yang J, Schmid JA, Haubensak WE, Monje FJ, Pollak DD. (2019) A role for miR-132 in learned safety. Sci Reports 9: 528.

Seo C, Guru A, Jin M, Ito B, Sleezer BJ, Ho YY, Wang E, Boada C, Krupa NA, Kullakanda DS, Shen CX, Warden MR. (2019) Intense threat switches dorsal raphe serotonin neurons to a paradoxical operational mode. Science. 363:538-542.

Corder G., Ahanonu B., Grewe B.F., Wang D., Schnitzer M.J., Scherrer G. (2019) An amygdalar neural ensemble that encodes the unpleasantness of pain. Science 363: 276-281.

Zhang X., Li B. (2018) Population coding of valence in basolateral amygdala. Nat Comm 9: 5195.

Nelson A., Mooney R. (2016) The basal forebrain and motor cortex provide convergent yet distinct movement-related inputs to the auditory cortex. Neuron, 90: 635-648.

Allsop SA, Wichmann R, Mills F, Burgos-Robles A, Chang CJ, Felix-Ortiz AC, Vienne A, Beyeler A, Izadmehr EM, Glober G, Cum MI, Stergiadou J, Anandalingam KK, Farris K, Namburi P, Leppla CA, Weddington JC, Nieh EH, Smith AC, Ba D, Brown EN, Tye KM. (2018) Corticoamygdala Transfer of Socially Derived Information Gates Observational Learning. Cell, 10.1016/j.cell.2018.04.004

Ren J, Friedmann D, Xiong J, Liu CD, Ferguson BR, Weerakkody T, DeLoach KE, Ran C, Pun A, Sun Y, Weissbourd B, Neve RL, Huguenard J, Horowitz MA, Luo L. (2018) Anatomically Defined and Functionally Distinct Dorsal Raphe Serotonin Sub-systems. Cell, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.07.043

Aitta-Aho T, Hay YA, Phillips BU, Saksida LM, Bussey TJ, Paulsen O, Apergis-Schoute J. (2018) Basal Forebrain and Brainstem Cholinergic Neurons Differentially Impact Amygdala Circuits and Learning-Related Behavior. Curr Biol, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.064.

Giardino WJ, Eban-Rothschild A, Christoffel DJ, Li SB, Malenka RC, de Lecea L. (2018) Parallel circuits from the bed nuclei of stria terminalis to the lateral hypothalamus drive opposing emotional states. Nat Neurosci 21:1084-1095.

Ahrens S., Wu M.V., Furlan A., Hwang G-R., Paik R., Li H., Penzo M., Tollukuhn J., Li B. (2018) A central extended amygdala circuit that modulates anxiety. J Neurosci 38: 5567-5583.

Marek R, Xu L, Sullivan RKP, Sah P. (2018) Excitatory connections between the prelimbic and infralimbic medial prefrontal cortex show a role for the prelimbic cortex in fear extinction. Nat Neurosci 21:654-658.

Ashley J, Cordy B, Lucia D, Fradkin LG, Budnik V, Thomson T. (2018) Retrovirus-like Gag Protein Arc1 Binds RNA and Traffics across Synaptic Boutons. Cell 172: 262-274.

Marek R, Jin J, Goode TD, Giustino TF, Wang Q, Acca GM, Holehonnur R, Ploski JE, Fitzgerald PJ, Lynagh T, Lynch JW, Maren S, Sah P. (2018) Hippocampus-driven feed-forward inhibition of the prefrontal cortex mediates relapse of extinguished fear. Nat Neuroscie 21:384-392.

Salay N.D.S., Ishiko N., Huberman A.D. (2018) A midline thalamic circuit determines reactions to visual threat. Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0078-2.

Kuchibhotla KV, Gill JV, Lindsay GW, Papadoyannis ES, Field RE, Sten TA, Miller KD, Froemke RC (2017) Parallel processing by cortical inhibition enables context-dependent behavior. Nat Neurosci 20: 62-71.

Madarasz TJ, Diaz-Mataix L, Akhand O, Ycu EA, LeDoux JE, Johansen JP. (2016) Evaluation of ambiguous associations in the amygdala by learning the structure of the environment. Nat Neurosci 19: 965

Steinmetz NA, Buetfering C, Lecoq J, Lee CR, Peters AJ, Jacobs EAK, Coen P, Ollerenshaw DR, Valley MT, de Vries SEJ, Garrett M, Zhuang J, Groblewski PA, Manavi S, Miles J, White C, Lee E, Griffin F, Larkin JD, Roll K, Cross S, Nguyen TV, Larsen R, Pendergraft J, Daigle T, Tasic B, Thompson CL, Waters J, Olsen S, Margolis DJ, Zeng H, Hausser M, Carandini M, Harris KD. (2017) Aberrant Cortical Activity in Multiple GCaMP6-Expressing Transgenic Mouse Lines. eNeuro. 4(5). pii: ENEURO.0207-17.2017.

Murugan M, Jang HJ, Park M, Miller EM, Cox J, Taliaferro JP, Parker NF, Bhave V, Hur H, Liang Y, Nectow AR, Pillow JW, Witten IB.(2017) Combined social and spatial coding in a descending projection from the prefrontal cortex. Cell 171: 1663 - 1677.

Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge Press, 1959 (Chapters I and II).

Espinosa N, Alonso A, Morales C, Espinosa P, Chávez AE, Fuentealba P. (2017) Basal Forebrain Gating by Somatostatin Neurons Drives Prefrontal Cortical Activity. doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhx302

Davis P., Zaki Y., Maguire J., Reijmers LG. (2017) Cellular and oscillatory substrates of fear extinction learning.Nat. Neurosci: doi: 10.1038/nn.4651

Martin-Fernandez M., Jamison S., Robin L.M., Zhao Z., Martin E.D., Aguilar J., Benneyworth M.A., Marsicano G., Araque A. (2017) Synapse-specific astrocyte gating of amygdala-related behavior. Nat Neurosci: doi:10.1038/nn.4649.

Wimmer R.D., Schmitt L.I., Davidson T.J., Nakajima M., Deisseroth K., Halassa M.M. (2015) Thalamic control of sensory selection in divided attention. Nature 526: 705-709.

Han W., Tellez L.A., Rangel Jr. M.J., Motta S.C., Zhang X., Perez I.O., Canteras N.S., Shammah-Lagnado S.J., van den Pol A.N., de Araujo I.E. (2017) Integrated control of predatory hunting by the central nucleus of the amygdala. Cell 168:311-324.

Gielow M.R., Zaborzsky L. (2017) The input-output relationship of the cholinergic basal forebrain. Cell Rep 18:1870-1830.

Halladay L.R., Blair H.T. (2015) Distinct ensembles of medial prefrontal cortex neurons are activated by threatening stimuli that elicit excitation vs. inhibition of movement. J Neurophysiol 114:793-807.

Grewe B.F., Gründemann J., Kitch L.J., Lecoq J.A., Parker J.G., Marshall J.D., Larkin M.C., Jercog P.E., Grenier F., Li J.Z., Lüthi A., Schnitzer M.J. (2017) Neural ensemble dynamics underlying a long-term associative memory. Nature 543: 670-675.

Kim W.B., Cho J-H. (2017) Synaptic targeting of double-projecting ventral CA1 hippocampal neurons to the medial prefrontal cortex and basal amygdala. J Neurosci 37:4868-4882.

Otis J.M., Namboodiri V.M., Matan A.M., Voets E.S., Mohorn E.P., Kosyk O., McHenry J.A., Robinson J.E., Resendez S.L., Rossi M.A., Stuber G.D. (2017) Prefrontal cortex output circuits guide reward seeking through divergent cue encoding. Nature 543: 103-107.

Wallis C.U., Cardinal R.N., Alexander L., Roberts A.C., Clarke H.F. (2017) Opposing roles of primate areas 25 and 32 and their putative rodent homologs in the regulation of negative emotion. PNAS 114: E4075-4084.

Gruene T.M., Lipps J., Rey C.D., Bouck A., Shansky R.M. (2014) Heat exposure in female rats elicits abnormal fear expression and cellular changes in prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Neurobiol Learn Mem 115: 38-42.

Miniscope workshop (Becky).

Day H.L.L., Reed M.M., Stevenson C.W. (2016) Sex differences in discriminating between cues predicting threat and safety. Neurobiol Learn Mem 133: 196-203.

Danielle and Margo are presenting posters on April 5 & 6 this week at the Undergraduate Research Conference.

A competitive inhibitory circuit for selection of active and passive fear responses.

Fadok JP, Krabbe S, Markovic M, Courtin J, Xu C, Massi L, Botta P, Bylund K, Müller C, Kovacevic A, Tovote P, Lüthi A.(2017) Nature, 542: 196.

An inhibitory pull-push circuit in frontal cortex.

Garcia-Junco-Clemente P., Ikrar T., Tring E., Xu X., Ringach D.L., Trachtenberg J.T. Nat Neurosci 20:389.

Gq/5-HT2c receptor signals activate a local GABAergic inhibitory feedback circuit to modulate serotonergic firing and anxiety in mice.

Spoida K, Masseck OA, Deneris ES, Herlitze S. PNAS 111:6479.

An intra-amygdala circuit specifically regulates social fear learning

Twinning R.C., Vantrease J.E., Love S., Padival M., Rosenkranz J.A. Nat Neurosci 20: 459. (2017)

Distinct hippocampal pathways mediate dissociable roles of context and memory retrieval.

Xu C., Krabbe S., Grundemann J., Botta P., Fadok J., Osakada F., Saur D., Grewe B.F., Schnitzer M.J., Callaway E.M., Luthi A.

Basal forebrain neuronal inhibition enables rapid behavioral stopping

Jeffrey D. Mayse, Geoffrey M. Nelson, Irene Avila, Michela Gallagher, and Shih-Chieh Lin,

Dysregulation of Prefrontal Cortex-Mediated Slow-Evolving Limbic Dynamics Drives Stress-Induced Emotional Pathology.

Hultman R, Mague SD, Li Q, Katz BM, Michel N, Lin L, Wang J, David LK, Blount C, Chandy R, Carlson D, Ulrich K, Carin L, Dunson D, Kumar S, Deisseroth K, Moore SD, Dzirasa K.

Cortical cholinergic signaling controls the detection of cues

Howard J. Grittona , William M. Howea , Caitlin S. Mallorya , Vaughn L. Hetricka , Joshua D. Berkea , and Martin Sartera,1

A shared neural ensemble links distinct contextual memories encoded close in time

Denise J. Cai1 *, Daniel Aharoni1,2,3*, Tristan Shuman2,3*, Justin Shobe1 *, Jeremy Biane4,5, Weilin Song1 , Brandon Wei1 , Michael Veshkini1 , Mimi La-Vu1 , Jerry Lou2,3, Sergio E. Flores2,3, Isaac Kim1 , Yoshitake Sano1 , Miou Zhou1 , Karsten Baumgaertel6, Ayal Lavi1 , Masakazu Kamata7 , Mark Tuszynski4,5, Mark Mayford6, Peyman Golshani2,3 & Alcino J. Silva1

CNC seminar: 4/30/21 @ 3pm! Lauren O'Connell

April 30, 2021

Lauren O’Connell, PhD (Stanford University)

Ecological resources and the evolution of parent-offspring interactions

4/30/21 @3-4:30pm

Please emal el1417<at>hunter<dot>cuny<dot>edu to attend

Biology Seminar 4/26 @ 12pm: Dr. Ivan Rodriguez

April 26, 2021

The sick sense is in the nose

Ivan Rodriguez, PhD (University of Geneva)

Sociability offers many advantages, although a major drawback is the increased risk of exposure to contagious pathogens, like parasites, viruses, or bacteria. Social species have evolved various behavioral strategies reducing the probability of pathogen exposure. We found that in rodents, preference toward healthy individuals was dependent on the olfactory system, more precisely on vomeronasal function. We discovered a novel family of vomeronasal sensors, termed formyl-peptide receptors, that respond to disease-related ligands. This receptor family, initially expressed in immune cells during evolution, acquired neuronal specificity in the rodent lineage via two gene shuffling events. This thus corresponds to a switch from sensing pathogens inside the organism to sensing the outside world through the nose, and represents a striking case of neofunctionalization.

To attend, email: el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu

Biology Seminar 4/19 @ 12pm - Eric Jarvis

April 19, 2021

Evolution of brain pathways for vocal learning and spoken language.

Eric Jarvis, PhD (Rockefeller University, HHMI)

Email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu for link to seminar

Congratulations to Dr. Rebecca Ravenelle!

April 15, 2021

This week, Becky defended her dissertation, “Circuits Underlying Serotonin Mediated Sex Differences in Fear Learning”, with lots of beautiful data, thoughtful experiments, and super interesting findings! Congratulations Becky for a job incredibly well done, and here is to putting everything into a paper!

Very happy to have Central Park nearby to celebrate with the lab, and Nesha Burghardt, Becky’s primary mentor on the project.

Congratulations to Itamar on winning the Mina Reese Dissertation Fellowship!

April 06, 2021

Huge congratulations going out to Itamar on his successful Dissertation Fellowship application!

Itamar has been doing some beautiful analyses of behavioral and neural changes after chronic stress. Lots of pretty images and new circuit findings coming soon from that work. Congratulations!

Itamar in behavior & physiology experiment mode

CNC Seminar 3/26 - Gregory Pask

March 22, 2021

Sniffin’ Out Your Friends: Decoding Smell in Ants and Fireflies

Gregory Pask, Ph.D. (Middlebury College)

3:00pm EST

email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

Do Sharks Sense Pain? CNC Seminar, Friday 3/19

March 18, 2021

Do Sharks Sense Pain?

Maria Elena de Bellard, Ph.D. (USC Northridge)

Friday, 3/19, 3:30pm EST

email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

Seminar: Carla Taveggia on Monday 3/15, 12pm EST

March 12, 2021

Hunter Biology Seminar

Schwann cell metabolism and myelin maintenance

Carla Taveggia, Ph.D. (San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan)

For Zoom link, please email: el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu

Friday, 3/5 - Seminar by Kelsey Heslin

March 03, 2021

Friday, 3/5, 4pm EST

Kelsey Heslin (University of Iowa)

Flexible interval timing in the rat cerebellum and medial frontal cortex

Please email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to join

Friday, 2/26: CNC Neuroscience Seminar - Pinar Ayata

February 24, 2021

Friday, February 26, 3pm EST

Pinar Ayata, Ph.D. (Advanced Science Research Center, CUNY)

Functional States of Microglia and Health and Disease

Please email or DM @ELikhtik to join the seminar via Zoom.

Talk today 2/3 at 2pm EST!

February 03, 2021

Amanda Russo (SUNY Stonybrook)

Behavioral and Neural Correlates of Individual Variation in Fear Extinction

email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to join

CNC Neuroscience Seminar 1/29 @ 3pm EST - Timothy Bredy

January 29, 2021

Our CNC Colloquium is back for the Spring semester.

Friday, 1/29, 3:00 - 4:30pm EST

Long noncoding RNAs and Memory, Timothy Bredy (Queensland Brain Institute)

Please email to attend: el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu

New Paper Out

January 27, 2021

We are interested in translating our safety learning work to humans in order to decrease anxiety. To this end, we are collaborating with Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary’s Emotion Regulation Lab . In a new paper, we outline our ideas for how to more seamlessly study the effects of safety learning on anxiety across the species.

Cho, H., Likhtik, E. & Dennis-Tiwary, T.A. Absence Makes the Mind Grow Fonder: Reconceptualizing Studies of Safety Learning in Translational Research on Anxiety. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci (2021).

New paper out

December 07, 2020

In our new review paper, “White Matter Plasticity in Anxiety: Disruption of Neural Network Synchronization during Threat-Safety Discrimination”, we argue that stress- and anxiety-related disorders are associated with altered myelin plasticity. In turn, changes in myelin plasticity, compromise synchronous communication within circuits that are crucial for proper learning of threat - safety discrimination.

Liu J., Likhtik E., Shereen D.A., Dennis-Tiwary T.A., Casaccia P. (2020) White Matter Plasticity in Anxiety: Disruption of Neural Network Synchronization during Threat-Safety Discrimination. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.

12/4 Friday CNC Seminar - Jan Grundemann

December 02, 2020

Friday, December 4, 3:00 - 4:30 pm

Imaging deep: sensory and state coding in subcortical circuits

Dr. Jan Gründemann (University of Basel)

Email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

11/25 CNC Neuroscience Seminar - Annalisa Scimemi

November 24, 2020

Wednesday, Nov. 25, 3:00 - 4:30pm

Circadian modulation of hippocampal function

Dr. Annalisa Scimemi (SUNY Albany)

Email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

CNC Neuroscience Seminar - Carmel Martin-Fairey

November 13, 2020

Friday, November 13, 2020 3:00 - 4:30pm

A Time to Deliver

Dr. Carmel Martin-Fairey (Harris-Stowe State University)

Dr. Martin-Fairey will discuss the roles that genetic and environmental disruptions of circadian rhythms play in risks for preterm birth.

Please email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

CNC Neuroscience Seminar - Ivan de Araujo

November 03, 2020

Friday, November 6, 2020, 3:00 - 4:30pm

The Gut-Brain Axis and Reward

Dr. Ivan de Araujo (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

Please email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu for link to attend

Neuroscience Seminar: Nesha Burghardt

October 16, 2020

Friday, October 16th, 3:00 - 4:30 pm

Vulnerable and Resilient Phenotypes in a Mouse Model of Anorexia Nervosa.

Dr. Nesha Burghardt (Hunter College, CUNY)

Please email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu for link to attend

New paper out

October 13, 2020

How can we boost the ability to learn about safety? When we amplify the salience of stimuli that signal safety, we improve their effectiveness. But that’s not all - we also improve discrimination of new non-threatening stimuli, and increase exploration of new environments, thereby decreasing generalized fear.

Our new paper is out showing these positive behavioral effects of Salient Safety training in the Safety issue of Behavioural Brain Research.

Nahmoud I., Ganay Vasquez J., Cho H., Dennis-Tiwary T., Likhtik E. (2020) Salient safety conditioning improves novel discrimination learning. Behav Brain Res 397: 112907.