"Sensitive periods in affective development: nonlinear maturation of fear learning"

Francis Lee, MD, PhD
Mortimer D. Sackler Professor, Dept of Psychaitry, Weill Cornell Medicine

At specific maturational stages, neural circuits enter sensitive periods of heightened plasticity, during which the development of both brain and behavior are highly receptive to particular experiential information. A relatively advanced understanding of the regulatory mechanisms governing the initiation, closure, and reinstatement of sensitive period plasticity has emerged from extensive research examining the development of the visual system. I will discuss the body of work characterizing the pronounced nonlinear changes in fear learning and extinction that occur from childhood through adulthood, and their underlying neural substrates, and will draw upon the model of sensitive period regulation within the visual system, and present burgeoning evidence suggesting that parallel mechanisms may regulate the qualitative changes in fear learning across development.

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 28, 2017 at 4:30 - 5:30 pm
THE BIOLOGICAL LABS, ROOM 1080
16 DIVINITY AVE, CAMBRIDGE, MA

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