People

Luke Ayers

Neurobiological basis of emotion.

  

   My research primarily deals with the neurobiological basis of emotion, with focus on states of fear and anxiety. I also have interests in theories of learning and memory, addiction, neuropharmacology and the stress response.

   Currently, I am working with an animal model of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in which fear potentated startle is used as a measure of learned fear and anxiety. In this model we administer the neuropeptide oxytocin during retrieval of learned fear to determine whether the drug has anxiolytic effects that could be useful for the treatment of human anxiety disorders.

   Additionally I am investigating the neural circuity involved in the innate freezing response to a derivitive of fox feces odor, 2,5-dihydro-2,4,5-trimethylthiazoline (TMT), with particular focus on interactions between the amygdala and the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.