Janet Menard, Ph.D. Department of Psychology, Queen's University

Fear and anxiety are highly adaptive emotions that protect us from harm in threatening situations. However, when anxiety is extreme or when it is inappropriate to the situation, it is no longer adaptive. Inappropriate, persistent anxiety can profoundly impair human functioning.

My research is concerned with the brain circuits responsible for mediating anxiety as a useful adaptation but will help us understand how alterations in these circuits might result in clinically pathological levels of anxiety. We have a number of different approaches for investigating the neural basis of anxiety, as outlined below.

Mapping the neural correlates of fear and anxiety

A major focus of my research is to map the neuroantatomical and neuropharmacological correlates of fear-related behaviors in the rat. Although early theories sought to localize fear or anxiety to a specific region in the brain (e.g., amygdala or septal nucleus), evidence increasingly suggests that different fear-related behaviors have different underlying neural mechanisms (reviewed in Menard & Treit, 1999; Treit & Menard, 2000). More details...

The influence of early-life adversity on the neural regulation of fear and anxiety

My research interests have broadened to include the development of an animal model that mimics some of the known risk factors and symptoms associated with stress-related psychopathologies. In particular, individuals abused or neglected in early childhood are at greater risk for developing stress-related disorders, such as anxiety or depression, in later life. More details...

The influence of later-life stress on the neural regulation of fear and anxiety
Most investigations into the neural regulation of anxiety are conducted using naive animals as subjects and, typically involve tests that measure animals' normal, presumably adaptive responses to aversive stimuli. However, periods of stress often precede and, in fact, may precipitate the excessive or inappropriate levels of fear and anxiety that are manifest in human anxiety disorders. Thus, it seems critical to include an element of prior stress exposure in any research program that aims to unravel the neural mechanisms of anxiety. In particular, this might allow us to determine how stress can lead to excessive or contextually inappropriate fear responses. More details...