Stephen Maren Ph.D.
| 4046 East Hall, 1043 |
| 530 Church St. |
| Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043 |
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The research in my laboratory is geared towards understanding the brain mechanisms of emotional learning and memory. Specifically, we are interested in how neural circuits in the amygdala, hippocampus, and preforntal cortex encode, store and retrieve memories after traumatic events. We are also very interested in the suppression of fear memory after extinction, a procedure that has considerable clinical relevance for the treatment of disorders of fear and anxiety in humans.
Our studies focus on an Pavlovian fear conditioning in rats and mice as a model for emotional learning and memory. We employ a number of different techniques including high-density single-unit recordings of neuronal activity in freely behaving rats and intracranial drug infusions combined with sophisticated behavioral designs. We are also exploring the use of viral vectors to target molecular pathways involved in learning-induced synaptic plasticity. Our studies are directed at providing a more complete understanding of the neural circuitry underlying fear conditioning and elucidating the nature of information processing within these fear conditioning circuits that contributes to pathological fear in humans.
Maren, S. and Hobin, J. A. (2007). Hippocampal regulation of context-dependent neuronal activity in the lateral amygdala. Learning & Memory, 14:318-324.
Maren, S. and Chang, C. H (2006). Recent fear is resistant to extinction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103:18020-18025.
Merino SM, Maren S. (2006). Hitting Ras where it counts: Ras antagonism in the basolateral amygdala inhibits long-term fear memory. Eur J Neurosci,23:196-204.
Corcoran KA, Desmond TJ, Frey KA, Maren S. (2005) Hippocampal inactivation disrupts the acquisition and contextual encoding of fear extinction. J Neurosci, 2005 25:8978-87.
Maren S. (2005). Synaptic mechanisms of associative memory in the amygdala. Neuron, 47:783-6.
Maren, S. (2005). Building and burying fear memories in the brain. The Neuroscientist, 11:89-99.
Maren S, Quirk GJ. (2004). Neuronal signalling of fear memory. Nature Rev Neurosci, 5:844-852.
Goosens KA, Maren S. (2004). NMDA receptor blockade prevents the acquisition, but not expression, of conditional fear and associative spike firing in the lateral amygdala. Eur J Neurosci, 20:537-548.
Hobin JA, Goosens KA, Maren S. (2003). Context-dependent neuronal activity in the lateral amygdala represents fear memories after extinction. J Neurosci, 23:8410-8416.
Goosens KA, Hobin JA, Maren S. (2003). Auditory-evoked spike firing in the lateral amygdala and Pavlovian fear conditioning: Mnemonic code or fear bias? Neuron, 40:1013-1022.
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