Seminar – Bianca SILVA

Whole brain mapping of fear memory systems

Stressful experiences generate some of the most enduring memories, often leading to the development of trauma-related disorders. Despite their high prevalence, effective treatments remain limited. Rodent models traditionally use aversive stimuli, such as electrical foot shocks, to model fear memory and have focused on amygdala-centered circuits. However, the simplicity of these stimuli fails to capture the complexity of human traumatic memories, which are likely processed by equally complex neural networks. Dr. Silva discusses a novel approach to study fear memory and extinction circuits in a more naturalistic setting. For this, she combines ethological behavioral settings with whole-brain mapping using ABBA+BraiAn, a novel pipeline developed by her team for brain-wide imaging analysis.