Steve Maren

Integrating Aversive Memories in the Basolateral Amygdala

Biological Psychiatry · 2025-04-06 · 7 citations

Decades of research have established a critical role of the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) in the encoding and storage of aversive memories. Much of this work has utilized Pavlovian fear conditioning procedures in which animals experience a single aversive event. Although this effort has produced great insight into the neural mechanisms that support fear memories for an isolated aversive experience, much less is known about how amygdala circuits encode and integrate multiple emotional…

Hippocampal ensembles regulate circuit-induced relapse of extinguished fear

Molecular Psychiatry · 2025-05-24 · 6 citations

Extinction learning is central to behavioral therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but relapse poses a major challenge to this approach. Recent work has revealed a critical role for the thalamic nucleus reuniens (RE) in the suppression of extinguished fear memories. Silencing the RE yields a relapse of extinguished fear (i.e., "circuit-induced relapse"). Considerable work suggests that RE may contribute to extinction by inhibiting the retrieval of hippocampal (HPC)-dependent fear…

Windows of change: Revisiting temporal and molecular dynamics of memory reconsolidation and persistence

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · 2025-05-10 · 5 citations

Locus Coeruleus-Amygdala Circuit Disrupts Prefrontal Control to Impair Fear Extinction

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-10-03 · 5 citations

Background Stress undermines extinction learning and hinders exposure-based clinical therapies for a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. In both animals and humans, dysfunction in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) contributes to stress-impaired extinction, but the neural circuit by which stress modulates vmPFC function is not known. We hypothesize that the locus coeruleus (norepinephrine system (LC-NE) undermines extinction learning by recruiting projections from the basolateral amyg…

Functional synaptic connectivity of engrafted spinal cord neurons with locomotor circuitry in the injured spinal cord

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-04-05 · 3 citations

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in significant neurological deficits, with no currently available curative therapies. Neural progenitor cell (NPC) transplantation has emerged as a promising approach for neural repair, as graft-derived neurons (GDNs) can integrate into the host spinal cord and support axon regeneration. However, the mechanisms underlying functional recovery remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigate the synaptic integration of NPC-derived neurons into locomotor circ…