Joshua Johansen

Dr. Joshua P. Johansen received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1998 and then worked in the lab of Howard Fields at UCSF until 2003. He then obtained his PhD in 2007 working in the lab of Hugh Tad Blair at the University of California, Los Angeles followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Joseph LeDoux’s lab at New York University from 2007 until 2011. During this time he identified neuronal coding, circuit and plasticity mechanisms controlling how aversive experiences trigger associative emotional learning.

Since 2011 he has been a Team Leader at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (now Center for Brain Science) in Japan. Here his lab has revealed a new organizational principle explaining how brainstem noradrenaline circuits control diverse brain functions and identified a predictive, top down feedback circuit mechanism for regulating aversive signaling during learning to control the strength of emotional memories. 

Title of talk: 
Brain circuits for triggering and reversing emotional memories

Affiliation:

RIKEN Center for Brain Science

Joshua Johansen Lab