Mentor: Dr. Maithe Arruda
Associate Professor
Project Description
Fear learning is critical for the survival of all species. Since potential threats are rarely identical, effective threat responding requires that learned fear is adapted and generalized appropriately across relevant contexts. Nevertheless, a critical balance must be maintained to prioritize optimal fear discrimination — distinguishing between safe and aversive stimuli, over excessive fear generalization — where animals treat safe stimuli as potential threats. Research shows that memory formation leads to the recruitment of sparse neuronal ensembles, also known as engrams, which are both necessary and sufficient for fear memory retrieval. Engrams are present in several brain areas, including the basolateral amygdala (BLA), a region implicated in fear generalization. This project will use a combination of activity tagging, imaging, immunohistochemistry, cell counts and behaviour to test the hypothesis that the switch toward fear generalization is triggered by the disproportional recruitment of BLA neuronal ensembles encoding safe stimulus cues.
Mentorship Statement
Research can be a challenging career choice. In my experience, kindling the passion for science and keeping the motivation necessary to overcome obstacles is only possible within a supportive, diverse, collaborative and stimulating research environment. Collaborations and team-work are key to incite creativity and productivity, not to mention one of the most rewarding parts of life and science. I run a mentorship-focused lab intent on creating a supportive, equitable, inclusive, diverse, collaborative and stimulating research environment deeply rooted in EDI principles. I believe in investing my time and resources in doing what I can to try and reduce barriers to access to research, and therefore am excited to support this incredible initiative.