Research done with Vinod Menon [Stanford], David Huron [OSU], and Daniel Abrams [Stanford].

Fundamental to survival is the balance between fear and exploratory behavior. It is known that basic auditory cues such as sudden intensity changes cause orienting responses. In this work we are exploring amygdala activation in response to simple stimuli such as rising and falling intensity and rising and falling pitch tones. We are particularly interested in asymmetric processing of rising and falling cues. We are also interested in the temporal pattern of neuronal activation for oddball stimuli where it is hypothesized that a fast fear response is followed by an inhibitory response.