Prefrontal Regulation of Safety Learning during Ethologically Relevant Thermal Threat

Ada Felix-Ortiz has dedicated her professional career in neuroscience to dissect the neural mechanisms contributing to anxiety-related behavior and mental disease. She completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Puerto Rico, and a master's degree in behavioral neuroscience at the Northeastern University in Massachusetts. Her master's dissertation focused on understanding the neural underpinnings of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using a rodent model and various techniques to assess alterations in brain function, such as fMRI. After her master’s, she continued research activities as a laboratory technician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the guidance of Kay Tye. Her work at MIT revealed key amygdala pathways to the ventral hippocampus (vHPC) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) that contributed to the profound modulation of anxiety-like and social-related behaviors. After several peer-reviewed articles, she moved to a startup company in the biotechnology sector to lead research projects on a mouse model of Friedreich Ataxia, as well as on evaluations of gene expression in animal models of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's Disease. After a few years, she went back to academia to continue research efforts on the neural mechanisms involved in behavioral regulation. She joined the laboratory of Anthony Burgos-Robles at UTSA as Lab Manager and Senior Research Associate to lead projects that are center around the neurobiology of threat learning, adaptive behavior, and the impact of social isolation stress.

After a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at his home island of Puerto Rico (Pontifical Catholic University), Anthony Burgos-Robles joined a doctoral program in biomedical sciences (Ponce School of Medicine – Mentor, Gregory Quirk) to launch a career in behavioral neuroscience focused on the study of the neural mechanisms underlying fear learning, stress, and emotional trauma. Burgos-Robles then expanded his knowledge and research skills as a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Mentors, Kay Tye and Ki Goosens), before joining the department of Neuroscience, Developmental, and Regenerative Biology (NDRB) at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) as a tenure-track faculty. As principal investigator, Burgos-Robles’ research program has been focusing on the neural substrates contributing to multiple forms of adaptive defensive behavior during various types of threat. His lab has developed novel paradigms in behaving mice to evaluate the following: [1] Adaptive behavior during situations involving naturalistic thermal threat and safety (e.g., when particular spatial zones are associated with either a noxious or a pleasant temperature); [2] Adaptive behavior during situations requiring the flexible adaptation of active avoidance responses during signaled threat (e.g., animals need to alternate certain behavioral actions such as climbing on distinct platforms to escape shock punishment); and [3] Adaptive behavior when social situations lead to threat and punishment (e.g., social preference turns into enduring social avoidance when interactions with an unfamiliar conspecific result in emotional trauma). So far, these novel paradigms have produced fascinating results while changing the perspective of Burgos-Robles and his research team on how neural circuits around the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regulate threat learning and coordinate adaptive behavior. In addition to behavioral paradigms, Burgos-Robles is implementing strategies such as in vivo neuronal recordings, optogenetics, chemogenetics to dissociate the role of distinct subregions of mPFC, and to dissect the functional role of key inputs and outputs of the mPFC to provide better mechanistic explanations for the processes involved during distinct types of threat. Finally, while implementing models of prolonged stress, he aims to enhance knowledge about psychiatric disorders that are characterized by profound alterations in prefrontal function and behavioral adaption.

Christophe Bernard, PhD, is the PhysioNet team leader in at the Institute of Neuroscience Systems at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). His research focuses on understanding how physiological and pathological behaviors emerge from the organization and reorganization of the underlying neuronal architecture, with an emphasis on epilepsy. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of eNeuro.