Michael A. McDannald

The paper uses ethograms to show that a fear conditioned visual cue in rats suppresses reward seeking and elicits freezing, with classification accuracy improved by full ethogram data.

This study shows that optogenetic inhibition of the caudal substantia nigra increases defensive responding to uncertain and safe cues in rats.

This study investigates how rats time their defensive behavior in response to fear conditioning cues, showing maximal suppression before shock delivery.

The paper shows that the brainstem constructs threat probability, behavior, and prediction error using neuronal activity across a 21-region axis during fear learning.

The paper identifies distinct threat and valence signaling in the rat nucleus accumbens core through single-unit activity recordings during fear discrimination tasks.

The paper shows that two VP neuron populations signal relative threat by decreasing firing with increasing shock probability, with one also signaling reward value.

This study shows that the nucleus accumbens core is essential for scaling fear responses to threat levels and for rapidly distinguishing uncertain threats from safety in rats.