Joseph E. LeDoux

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Joseph E. LeDoux (born December 7, 1949) is an American neuroscientist whose research is primarily focused on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions such as fear and anxiety. [1] LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University, and director of the Emotional Brain Institute, a collaboration between NYU and New York State with research sites at NYU and the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, New York. He is also the lead singer and songwriter in the band The Amygdaloids.

Contents

Early life and education

Joseph LeDoux was born on December 7, 1949, in the Cajun Prairie town of Eunice, Louisiana, to Joseph E. "Boo" LeDoux, a traveling rodeo performer (bull rider) and butcher, and Priscilla Buller LeDoux. He attended St. Edmund's Elementary School and Eunice High School, graduating in 1967. LeDoux attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge where he majored in Business Administration and minored in Psychology. In 1972 he began work on a Masters of Science in Marketing from LSU. During this time, his interest in psychology grew and he volunteered in the laboratory of Robert Thompson, who introduced him to brain research. Cajun/zydeco, country, R&B, rock, and their fusion into "swamp pop", were influences in LeDoux's childhood. In high school, he was a disc jockey at the local radio station, KEUN, and the rhythm guitarist of two bands: the Deadbeats and the Countdowns.

Academic and professional history

In the fall of 1974 LeDoux began a PhD program at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and completed his degree in 1977. In 1978, LeDoux joined the Department of Neurology at Cornell Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow and remained there through the rank of associate professor until 1989. During most of his time at Cornell, he worked in the Neurobiology Laboratory where he received technical training in state-of-the-art neuroscience techniques and began the research program on the brain mechanism of emotional memory that he has pursued ever since. In 1989 he joined the newly formed Center for Neural Science at NYU as an associate professor. In 1991 he was promoted to full professor, and in 1996 he became the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science. In 2005, he was named university professor.

Personal life

In 1971 LeDoux married LSU classmate Diana Steen. They divorced amicably in 1978. Since 1982 he has been married to art critic Nancy Princenthal. They reside in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. They have two children, Jacob S. LeDoux (died 2005) and Milo E. LeDoux. Milo is a graduate of the University of Oxford, where he studied classics, and is pursuing a career in law.

In 2004, LeDoux and NYU Biology Professor Tyler Volk began performing as a cover band for small parties around NYU, and in 2006 they formed The Amygdaloids. The original band also included Daniela Schiller, (then an NYU postdoctoral fellow), and graduate student Nina Curley. The band's lyrics, mostly written by LeDoux, are based on neuroscientific, psychological, and philosophical themes, and offer scholarly insights into the role of mind and brain in daily life. Their inaugural CD, Heavy Mental, was released in 2007. On their second CD, Theory of My Mind, LeDoux and Grammy winner Rosanne Cash sing "Crime of Passion" and "Mind over Matter", both written by LeDoux. In 2012, the band released All in Our Minds, an EP in which all songs had "mind" in their title. Anxious, a companion to LeDoux's book with the same title, was released in 2015 and explores some of the same scientific themes as the book, but through song. The band's unique focus on original songs about mind and brain has landed them considerable press. They play regularly in New York City, and have also performed in Washington DC, San Antonio TX, Indianapolis IN, Lafayette LA, and Montreal. LeDoux and Amygdaloids' bassist Colin Dempsey perform as an acoustic duo called So We Are.

Research and theories

Work on threat response, anxiety, and emotions

As explained in his 1996 book, The Emotional Brain, [2] LeDoux developed an interest in the topic of emotion through his doctoral work with Michael Gazzaniga on split-brain patients in the mid-1970s. [3] Because techniques for studying the human brain were limited at the time, he turned to studies of rodents where the brain could be studied in detail. He chose to focus on a simple behavioral model, Pavlovian fear conditioning. This procedure allowed him to follow the flow of information about a stimulus through the brain as it comes to control behavioral responses by way of sensory pathways to the amygdala, and gave rise to the notion of two sensory roads to the amygdala, with the "low road" being a quick and dirty subcortical pathway for rapid activity behavioral responses to threats and the "high road" providing slower but highly processed cortical information. [4] His work has shed light on how the brain detects and responds to threats, and how memories about such experiences are formed and stored through cellular, synaptic and molecular changes in the amygdala. [5] A long-standing collaboration with NYU colleague Elizabeth Phelps has shown the validity of the rodent work for understanding threat processing in the human brain. [6]

LeDoux's work on amygdala processing of threats has helped understand exaggerated responses to threats in anxiety disorders in humans. [5] [7] For example, studies with Maria Morgan in the 1990s implicated the medial prefrontal cortex in the extinction (psychology) of responses to threats [8] and paved the way for understanding how exposure therapy reduces threat reactions in people with anxiety by way of interactions between the medial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. [2] [9] Work conducted with Karim Nader and Glenn Schafe triggered a wave of interest in the topic of memory reconsolidation, [10] a process by which memories become labile and subject to change after being retrieved. [11] This led to the idea that trauma-related cues might be weakened in humans by blocking reconsolidation. Studies with Marie Mofils, Daniela Schiller and Phelps showed that extinction conducted shortly after triggering reconsolidation is considerably more effective in reducing the threat value of stimuli than conventional extinction, [12] a finding that has proven useful in reducing drug relapse in humans. [13]

Difference between threat response and emotions

In 2012 LeDoux emphasized the value, when discussing brain functions in animals, of using terms that are not derived from human subjective experience. [14] The common practice of calling brain circuits that detect and respond to threats "fear circuits" implies that these circuits are responsible for feelings of fear. LeDoux has argued that so-called Pavlovian fear conditioning should be renamed Pavlovian threat conditioning to avoid the implication that "fear" is being acquired in rats or humans. [15]

In 2015 he emphasised the notion of survival functions mediated by survival circuits, the purpose of which is to keep organisms alive (rather than to make emotions). For example, defensive survival circuits exist to detect and respond to threats, and can be present in all organisms. However, only organisms that can be conscious of their own brain's activities can feel fear. Fear is a conscious experience and occurs the same way as any other kind of conscious experience: via cortical circuits that allow attention to certain forms of brain activity. He argues the only differences between an emotional and non-emotion state of consciousness are the underlying neural ingredients that contribute to the state. [16] These ideas and their implications for understanding the neural foundations of pathological fear and anxiety are explained in his 2015 book, Anxious. [17] In this he says "Fear and anxiety are not biologically wired... They are the consequence of the cognitive processing of nonemotional ingredients." [18]

In 2018 he wrote that the amygdala may release hormones due to a trigger (such as an innate reaction to seeing a snake), but "then we elaborate it through cognitive and conscious processes". He differentiated between the defence system, which has evolved over time, and emotions such as fear and anxiety. He points out that even simple organisms such as bacteria move in response to threats; "It's in the brain to allow an organism, whether it be a bacterium or a human, to detect and respond to danger. ... It's not in the brain to create feelings like fear and anxiety." [19] Lisa Feldman Barrett takes a similar view. [20]

Awards and professional recognition

LeDoux has received a number of awards, including the Karl Spencer Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society, the Fyssen International Prize in Cognitive Science, Jean Louis Signoret Prize of the IPSEN Foundation, the Santiago Grisolia Prize, the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award, and the American Psychological Association Donald O. Hebb Award.[ citation needed ] He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a William James Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.[ citation needed ]

Books and other public outreach

In addition to numerous publications in scholarly journals, LeDoux has written:

He has edited several volumes, including Mind and Brain: Dialogues in Cognitive Neuroscience (with William Hirst, Cambridge University Press, 1986), The Self: From Soul to Brain (with Jacek Debiec and Henry Moss, Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 2003), and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Basic Science and Clinical Practice (with Peter Shiromani and Terrence Keane, Humana Press, 2009).

He has contributed to The New York Times Opinionator column on anxiety and to the Huffington Post , and has conducted numerous television, radio, online, and print interviews. [22] LeDoux has also collaborated with filmmaker Alexis Gambis on a project called "My Mind's Eye" on the Scientific American website in which interviews with esteemed scientists and philosophers (including Eric Kandel, Michael Gazzaniga, Ned Block) are framed within the context of his music (see § Music below).[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phobia</span> Anxiety disorder classified by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation

A phobia is an anxiety disorder, defined by a persistent and excessive fear of an object or situation. Phobias typically result in a rapid onset of fear and are usually present for more than six months. Those affected go to great lengths to avoid the situation or object, to a degree greater than the actual danger posed. If the object or situation cannot be avoided, they experience significant distress. Other symptoms can include fainting, which may occur in blood or injury phobia, and panic attacks, often found in agoraphobia and emetophobia. Around 75% of those with phobias have multiple phobias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amygdala</span> Each of two small structures deep within the temporal lobe of complex vertebrates

The amygdala is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown to perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision making, and emotional responses, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system. The term "amygdala" was first introduced by Karl Friedrich Burdach in 1822.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Limbic system</span> Set of brain structures involved in emotion and motivation

The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.

Physiological psychology is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experiments. This field of psychology takes an empirical and practical approach when studying the brain and human behavior. Most scientists in this field believe that the mind is a phenomenon that stems from the nervous system. By studying and gaining knowledge about the mechanisms of the nervous system, physiological psychologists can uncover many truths about human behavior. Unlike other subdivisions within biological psychology, the main focus of psychological research is the development of theories that describe brain-behavior relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fear conditioning</span> Behavioral paradigm in which organisms learn to predict aversive events

Pavlovian fear conditioning is a behavioral paradigm in which organisms learn to predict aversive events. It is a form of learning in which an aversive stimulus is associated with a particular neutral context or neutral stimulus, resulting in the expression of fear responses to the originally neutral stimulus or context. This can be done by pairing the neutral stimulus with an aversive stimulus. Eventually, the neutral stimulus alone can elicit the state of fear. In the vocabulary of classical conditioning, the neutral stimulus or context is the "conditional stimulus" (CS), the aversive stimulus is the "unconditional stimulus" (US), and the fear is the "conditional response" (CR).

Affective neuroscience is the study of how the brain processes emotions. This field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood. The basis of emotions and what emotions are remains an issue of debate within the field of affective neuroscience.

An avoidance response is a natural adaptive behavior performed in response to danger. Excessive avoidance has been suggested to contribute to anxiety disorders, leading psychologists and neuroscientists to study how avoidance behaviors are learned using rat or mouse models. Avoidance learning is a type of operant conditioning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orbitofrontal cortex</span> Region of the prefrontal cortex of the brain

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a prefrontal cortex region in the frontal lobes of the brain which is involved in the cognitive process of decision-making. In non-human primates it consists of the association cortex areas Brodmann area 11, 12 and 13; in humans it consists of Brodmann area 10, 11 and 47.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ventromedial prefrontal cortex</span> Body part

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a part of the prefrontal cortex in the mammalian brain. The ventral medial prefrontal is located in the frontal lobe at the bottom of the cerebral hemispheres and is implicated in the processing of risk and fear, as it is critical in the regulation of amygdala activity in humans. It also plays a role in the inhibition of emotional responses, and in the process of decision-making and self-control. It is also involved in the cognitive evaluation of morality.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amygdala hijack</span> Type of emotional response

An amygdala hijack is an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat. The term, coined by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, is used by affective neuroscientists and is considered a formal academic term. The amygdala is made up of two small, round structures located closer to the forehead than the hippocampi, near the temporal lobes. The amygdalae are involved in detecting and learning which parts of our surroundings are important and have emotional significance. They are critical for the production of emotion. They are known to be very important for negative emotions, especially fear. Amygdala activation often happens when we see a potential threat. The amygdala uses our past, related memories to help us make decisions about what is currently happening.

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Many experiments have been done to find out how the brain interprets stimuli and how animals develop fear responses. The emotion, fear, has been hard-wired into almost every individual, due to its vital role in the survival of the individual. Researchers have found that fear is established unconsciously and that the amygdala is involved with fear conditioning.

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References

  1. ↑ "I'm not studying emotion. I'm studying the function of survival circuits. Survival circuits contribute to emotions but are not emotion circuits." LeDoux as quoted in: Emory, Margaret (June 6, 2018). "On Fear, Emotions, and Memory: An Interview with Dr. Joseph LeDoux". brainworldmagazine.com. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  2. 1 2 LeDoux JE (1996) The Emotional Brain. New York: Simon and Schuster.
  3. ↑ Gazzaniga MS, LeDoux JE (1978) The Integrated Mind. New York: Plenum.
  4. ↑ LeDoux JE (1994) Emotion, memory and the brain. Sci Am 270:50-57.
  5. 1 2 LeDoux JE (2002) Synaptic Self: How our brains become who we are. New York: Viking; LeDoux JE (2000) Emotion circuits in the brain. Annu Rev Neurosci 23:155-184; Rodrigues SM, Schafe GE, LeDoux JE (2004) Molecular mechanisms underlying emotional learning and memory in the lateral amygdala. Neuron 44:75-91; Johansen JP, Cain CK, Ostroff LE, LeDoux JE (2011) Molecular mechanisms of fear learning and memory. Cell 147:509-524.
  6. ↑ Phelps, Elizabeth A.; Ledoux, Joseph E. (2005). "Contributions of the Amygdala to Emotion Processing: From Animal Models to Human Behavior". Neuron. 48 (2): 175–187. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2005.09.025 . PMID   16242399. S2CID   4821044.
  7. ↑ New York: Viking; LeDoux JE (2015) Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. New York: Viking.
  8. ↑ Morgan MA, Romanski LM, LeDoux JE (1993) Extinction of emotional learning: contribution of medial prefrontal cortex. Neurosci Lett 163:109-113; Morgan MA, LeDoux JE (1995) Differential contribution of dorsal and ventral medial prefrontal cortex to the acquisition and extinction of conditioned fear in rats. Behav Neurosci 109:681-688; Sotres-Bayon F, Bush DE, LeDoux JE (2004) Emotional perseveration: an update on prefrontal-amygdala interactions in fear extinction. Learn Mem 11:525-535.
  9. ↑ LeDoux JE (2002) Synaptic Self: How our brains become who we are. New York: Viking; LeDoux JE (2015) Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. New York: Viking; Shin, L.M., S.L. Rauch, R.K. Pitman. "Amygdala, Medial Prefrontal Cortex, and Hippocampal Function in PTSD." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2006) 1071:67–79; Mathew, S.J., R.B. Price, and D.S. Charney. "Recent Advances in the Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders: Implications for Novel Therapeutics." American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C, Seminars in Medical Genetics (2008) 148C:89–98.
  10. ↑ Nader K, Schafe GE, LeDoux JE (2000) Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after retrieval. Nature 406:722-726
  11. ↑ Dudai, Yadin; Eisenberg, Mark (2004). "Rites of Passage of the Engram". Neuron. 44 (1): 93–100. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2004.09.003 . PMID   15450162. S2CID   18182429.
  12. ↑ Monfils MH, Cowansage KK, Klann E, LeDoux JE (2009) Extinction-reconsolidation boundaries: key to persistent attenuation of fear memories. Science 324:951-955; Schiller D, Monfils MH, Raio CM, Johnson DC, LeDoux JE, Phelps EA (2010) Preventing the return of fear in humans using reconsolidation update mechanisms. Nature 463:49-53; Schiller D, Kanen JW, LeDoux JE, Monfils MM, and Phelps EA (2013) Extinction during reconsolidation of threat memory diminishes prefrontal cortex involvement. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110:20040-20045.
  13. ↑ Xue YX, Luo YX, Wu P, Shi HS, Xue LF, Chen C, Zhu WL, Ding ZB, Bao YP, Shi J, Epstein DH, Shaham Y, Lu L (2012) A memory retrieval-extinction procedure to prevent drug craving and relapse. Science 336:241-245.
  14. ↑ LeDoux J (2012) Rethinking the emotional brain. Neuron 73:653-676.
  15. ↑ LeDoux JE (2014) Coming to terms with fear. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 111:2871-2878.
  16. ↑ LeDoux JE (2015) Feelings: What are they and how does the brain make them? Daedalus 144.
  17. ↑ LeDoux JE (2015) Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety. New York: Viking.
  18. ↑ ANxiety, 2015, Chapter 9, p232
  19. ↑ "On Fear, Emotions, and Memory: An Interview with Dr. Joseph LeDoux » Page 2 of 2 » Brain World". 2018-06-07.
  20. ↑ Neuroscience, Dean Mobbs,Ralph Adolphs,Michael S. Fanselow,Lisa Feldman Barrett,Joseph E. LeDoux,Kerry Ressler,Kay M. Tye,Nature. "On the Nature of Fear". Scientific American. Retrieved 2022-06-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  21. ↑ Harvard University Press. "The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human".
  22. ↑ "LeDoux Lab: News/Events/Press". www.cns.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
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