The CNIR Seminar will be held as follows. 

Date/Time:  July 7 (Thu) 11 A.M.

Place: N Center #86126

Speaker: Jeansok J Kim, Ph.D.
(Department of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, University of Washington)


Title: The Brain’s Fear System: Thinking Outside the Conditioning Box 

Abstract: Fear is an integral part of the brain’s defense mechanism that protects organisms from various environmental threats, such as predators in animals and assailants in humans. Despite the dynamic range of risky situations in nature that require various adaptive actions and decisions, contemporary models of fear stem largely from Pavlovian fear conditioning studies that focus on how innocuous cues as consequences of their contingent pairing with aversive events become capable of eliciting learned fear responses, thus oversimplifying the brain’s fear system. In the first part of my talk, I will present some recent studies from my lab that revealed how the dimensions of fear and space interact in the brain at the coding level as rats navigate risky environments. The second part of my talk will address whether fear conditioning can be validated from a simple conditioning box to complex real-life situations.

We look forward to seeing you at the seminar!