Event

Neuroscience Seminar: The Thalamic Hub: Moving Beyond the Canonical Model of Pavlovian Fear Conditioning; Muhammad Badarnee, PhD, McGovern School of Medicine, UT Health Medical Center

Hosted by Jamal B. Williams, PhD

While the amygdala and prefrontal cortex have long dominated the neurobiology of fear, the thalamus is emerging as a far more sophisticated player than previously recognized. In this lecture, I will challenge the canonical model of threat learning by positioning the thalamus as a critical hub for both acquisition and memory retrieval. Drawing on recent empirical data from human studies, I will demonstrate how specific thalamic subregions orchestrate these circuits during learning and recall. Finally, I will integrate these findings into a revised neural theoretical model, highlighting the thalamus’s mechanistic role and its significant potential as a target for translational research in clinical disorders.