Webinar: Neural Circuits of Survival: How the Brain Orchestrates Defensive Behavior
Creative Biolabs has invited Dr. Jonathan P. Fadok to walk us through neural circuits of survival: how the brain orchestrates defensive behaviour.
Details
When? Wednesday 25 June 2025, 16:00 to 17:00
Where? Online
Creative Biolabs has invited Dr Jonathan P Fadok to walk us through neural circuits of survival: how the brain orchestrates defensive behaviour.
This webinar will take place at 11:00 EDT, 16:00 BST
A major focus of his research is understanding how animals rapidly switch between different defensive states, such as freezing and fleeing. Recently, his team identified a novel brain pathway—from the dorsal peduncular cortex to the amygdala—that plays a key role in promoting flight behaviour during threat. This research offers new insights into how top-down control from the cortex can regulate survival behaviours and may help inform treatments for anxiety and trauma-related disorders.
In this webinar, we will explore and review the following key points:
- Overview of innate and learned defensive responses: freezing, flight, and their neural underpinnings
- Introduction to the conditioned flight model and behavioural state transitions
- Central amygdala microcircuits and their role in defensive action selection
- Discovery of a top-down cortico-amygdala pathway from the dorsal peduncular cortex
- Functional relevance of downstream targets: PAG and RRF contributions to threat modulation
- Broader implications for understanding emotional regulation and trauma-related disorders
Speaker
Jonathan P Fadok, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Tulane University and a faculty member of the Tulane Brain Institute. He also serves as a research neuroscientist at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System. His research explores how the brain controls responses to threat and stress, with a focus on the neural circuits underlying fear, anxiety, and trauma-related behaviours.