The EMERALD Project
Using Virtual Reality to Understand Fear and Proximity
TMS of Emotion Regulation Networks
Psychosocial Factors that Contribute to Pandemic Anxiety
Neural Representation of Conditioned Fear
Welcome
Research in this laboratory focuses on understanding how emotional events modulate cognitive processes in the human brain. We aim to identify brain regions that encode the emotional properties of sensory stimuli, and to show how these regions interact with neural systems supporting social cognition, executive control, and learning and memory. To achieve this goal, we use a variety of cognitive neuroscience techniques in human subject populations. These include psychophysiological monitoring, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and behavioral studies in healthy adults as well as psychiatric patients. This integrative approach capitalizes on recent advances in the field and may lead to new insights into cognitive-emotional interactions in the brain.
Lab news & announcements
Congratulations to graduate student Leonard Faul, whose seminal review paper entitled "Mood-Congruent Memory Revisited" was accepted for publication in Psychological Review!
First-year graduate student Lucas Bellaiche has been awarded the prestigious NSF graduate fellowship! Congrats, Lucas!
The lab has published a paper in the Journal of Affective Disorders titled Enhancing cognitive restructuring with concurrent fMRI-guided neurostimulation for emotional dysregulation–A randomized controlled trial. The paper can be found here.
The lab has published a paper in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience titled The temporal dynamics of spontaneous emotional brain states and their implications for mental health. The paper can be found here.
Graduate student Leonard Faul has been awarded the Katherine Goodman Stern Dissertation Fellowship. Congrats, Leonard!
Former grad student Natasha Parikh’s paper on counterfactual thinking and regulation of emotional memories in anxious individuals was published in Frontiers in Psychology (see attached).
The lab has published a paper in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics titled Enhancing cognitive restructuring with concurrent repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation: A transdiagnostic randomized controlled trial. (see attached).
Current grad students Leonard Faul, Rachael Wright, and Daniel Parr each received Graduate Grant Awards sponsored by the Charles Lafitte Foundation Program for Research in Psychology and Neuroscience.
CNAP first-year students Lucas Bellaiche and Jane Rothrock began their rotations in the lab.
The lab welcomes Yaohui Ding as a new postdoc, who completed his PhD work at the University of Arizona under John Allen.
Dr. LaBar has been appointed Associate Chair of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, effective July 1, 2021. Congratulations, Dr. LaBar!
Lab alumna Natasha Parikh has started her new role as a Teaching Assistant Professor at UNC Chapel Hill, where her primary responsibilities are to teach and develop technical courses in the Psychology & Neuroscience Department. Congrats, Dr. Parikh!
Lab alumnus John Powers’ paper investigating the role of the parietal cortex in emotional distancing using TMS was accepted for publication at Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.
Lab alumna Natasha Parikh’s paper on counterfactual thinking in anxious individuals has been posted on-line at Cognition & Emotion (see attached).
The lab has received a new NIH R01 grant that uses machine learning and computational modeling to decode emotions from fMRI and psychophysiological signals!
The lab is participating in a grant funded by the REAM foundation to pilot the use of fMRI-guided TMS as an intervention in misophonia (led by Andrada Neasciu in Psychiatry)!
Lab alumnus Phil Kragel has started a tenure-track professor position at Emory University. Congratulations, Dr. Kragel!
Dr. LaBar was nominated to be a standing Panel Member of the NIH Study Section on Mechanisms of Emotion, Stress, and Health.