Dr. Ewelina Knapska
Network of European Neuroscience Institutes
Network of European Neuroscience Institutes (ENI-NET)
Germany
Biography
Dr. Ewelina Knapska Laboratory of Neurobiology of Emotions – The Nencki Institute at Warsaw
Research Interest
The effectiveness of fear extinction memory recall depends on the context. Fear, effectively extinguished in one context (e.g., in the therapist’s office) may be renewed in another context (e.g., in the street). This is one of the main reasons of failure of exposure therapy used for treatment of anxiety disorders. Understanding the neuronal circuits underlying fear extinction may therefore be crucial for the development of new therapies. Our studies suggest that fear extinction is controlled by highly specialized neuronal circuits in the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. These studies also indicated the presence of two distinct neuronal circuits in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala that are activated by recall of memory traces either for fear or for fear extinction. Identification of two distinct neuronal circuits is the first step to explore the possibility of a very specific improvement of fear extinction mechanisms. Moreover, we showed that fear renewal can be socially driven.
