Colloquium - Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD

Date: 

Wednesday, September 14, 2016, 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Location: 

William James Hall - Room 1, Basement Auditorium

Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer, McLean Hospital

James and Patricia Poitras Chair in Psychiatry
Chief, Division of Depression & Anxiety Disorders

Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

http://www.mcleanhospital.org/biography/kerry-ressler

Topic: Neurobiology and Genetics of Fear and PTSD: From Mice to (Wo)Man

Abstract: 

Fear-related disorder such as post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder and phobia manifest in ways that are consistent with an uncontrollable state of fear. Their development involves heredity, previous sensitizing experiences, association of aversive events with previous neutral stimuli, and inability to inhibit or extinguish fear after it is chronic and disabling. I will highlight recent progress in fear learning and memory, differential genetic susceptibility to disorders of fear, and how these findings are being applied to the understanding, treatment and possible prevention of fear disorders. Promising advances are being translated from basic science to the clinic, including approaches to distinguish risk versus resilience before trauma exposure, methods to interfere with fear development during memory consolidation after a trauma, and techniques to inhibit fear reconsolidation and to enhance extinction of chronic fear. Cutting edge approaches to understand the genetic and epigenetic regulation at a cell-type specific level within amygdala, medial prefrontal, and hippocampal circuitry as it relates to fear extinction will also be discussed.  It is hoped that this new knowledge will translate to more successful, neuroscientifically informed and rationally designed approaches to disorders of fear regulation.