Dr. Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, McLean Hospital
​Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Decades of work has expanded our understanding of the neuroscience of fear and threat involving hub structures such as the amygdala and integrated cortical and subcortical regions. In this review, I will examine key recent findings, as well as integrate the importance of genetics, neuroimaging, and translational approaches, from rodents to humans, to provide a broader perspective of how neural systems interact with amygdala-based circuits in the encoding, expression, and extinction of threat-related memories. Understanding how such memories are encoded and updated will ultimately lead to novel neurobiologically-driven approaches for treatment and prevention of PTSD and other fear-based disorders.