| Affiliations: | DeBakey Executive Research Leadership Program |
| Project Leader: | Diana Guerra dianapguerra01@tamu.edu Psychological & Brain Sciences |
| Faculty Mentor: | Justin Moscarello, Ph.D. |
|
Meeting Times:
|
TBA |
|
Team Size:
|
2 |
| Open Spots: | 0 |
|
Special Opportunities:
|
Exploring field, presentations, potential member of research group
|
|
Team Needs:
|
|
|
Description:
|
Avoidance is an adaptive behavior that can easily become maladaptive. A way that we model avoidance in a laboratory setting is through the signaled active avoidance (SAA) paradigm. Here, a conditioned stimulus, such as a tone, is played before the onset of an unconditioned stimulus, such as a shock, which establishes a relationship between the stimuli. The animal is then able to avoid the shock by moving between two sides of the training apparatus when the tone goes off. An area that has been implicated in the uncertain state of anxiety that avoidance engenders is the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST). This region is part of the limbic system which is responsible for behavioral and emotional responses. This research project investigates the role of the BNST in SAA using behavioral and chemogenetic approaches/manipulations. |