Regulation of social behavior by the developing amygdala

Abstract:
Adolescence is characterized by a high degree of social exploration, marked by elevated social interaction and social play. Engagement in social play is critical for brain and social development and requires a high degree of reciprocity essential for healthy social interactions, cognitive flexibility, and adaptive social responding during adversity throughout the lifespan. Social play naturally declines and transitions towards a social investigation-based repertoire in adulthood. While several brain regions are important for social behavior, amygdala function changes from adolescence to adulthood and its activity across ages regulates age-specific social behavior. Nonnormative social behaviors and aberrant amygdala activation are common in several neuropsychiatric disorders, and these are especially prevalent during adolescence. My lab uses a combination of approaches to understand and mechanistically dissect the contribution of amygdala maturation to social behavior. We have identified the basomedial amygdala as a critical site for age-specific social behaviors in adolescents and adults that is uniquely sensitive to the social environment. Our work provides the foundation to understand whether amygdala maturation drives transitions in social behavior and identifies key factors that contribute to nonnormative social and amygdala maturation from adolescence to adulthood.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Nicole Ferrara earned her PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before completing her postdoctoral work at Rosalind Franklin University, where she opened her independent lab in the fall of 2022. Dr. Ferrara is a member of the Physiology and Biophysics Discipline and Center for Neurobiology of Stress Resilience and Psychiatric Disorders. She studies the maturation of neural circuits and how this influences transitions in fear and social behavior from adolescence to adulthood. Dr. Ferrara uses a variety of behavioral, electrophysiological, and molecular approaches to identify distinct amygdala mechanisms sensitive to and supporting developmental shifts in behavior. Dr. Ferrara is a member of the executive committee for the Pavlovian Society, a co-executive director of Women in Learning (WIL), the chair of the Ethics & Diversity Committee for the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, and a member of the Eastern Psychological Association and Society for Neuroscience groups.

Contact

Janine Kwapis
jlk855@psu.edu