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Jonathan
C. Gewirtz, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Psychology
jgewirtz@umn.edu |
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 Memory,
Fear, and Anxiety.
1) Biological processes underlying learning and memory
2) Producing animal models of human psychopathology
3) Neural substrates of fear conditioning
My work concerns the biological substrates of memory, fear, and
anxiety. Fears can be acquired extremely rapidly and once acquired,
can last a lifetime. I use pavlovian conditioning paradigms to produce
fearful memories in rats. To test for the presence and strength
of those memories, I measure the startle reflex, the size of which
is elevated when a rat (or other mammal, including human) is afraid.
"Fear-potentiated startle" provides us with a tool to
identify brain structures, and to study pharmacological and molecular
mechanisms involved in different aspects of the formation and retrieval
of fearful memories. Moreover, the startle response is chronically
elevated in certain forms of anxiety disorder. Thus, understanding
the mechanisms through which startle can be elevated provides insights
into the pathophysiology and treatment of anxiety.
Figure 2. (above) Expression of synaptotagmin in hippocampus is increased
by stress. (A) Autoradiographic images of synaptotagmin in the hippocampus
of animals from the control (CO) and acute stress (AS) groups demonstrate
an increase in expression in the dentate gyrus (DG), CA1, and CA3
from the AS group. (B) Expression of synaptotagmin was significantly
enhanced in the hippocampal areas in the AS and chronic stress (CS)
groups relative to CO rats (*p < .05). There was no significant difference
in synaptotagmin expression among AS and CS groups. Differences in
the synaptotagmin expression in the cerebral cortex (CC) among the
groups was not statistically significant. The Mann-Whitney U test
was used for statistical analysis. |
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Selected Publications
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Harris AC, Gewirtz JC
Elevated startle during withdrawal from acute morphine: a model of opiate withdrawal and anxiety.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2004 Jan;171(2):140-7 |
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Gewirtz JC, Chen AC, Terwilliger R, Duman RC, Marek GJ
Modulation of DOI-induced increases in cortical BDNF expression by group II mGlu receptors.
Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 2002 Sep;73(2):317-26 |
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Thome J, Pesold B, Baader M, Hu M, Gewirtz
JC, Duman RS, Henn FA
Stress differentially regulates synaptophysin and synaptotagmin expression
in hippocampus.
Biol
Psychiatry 2001 Nov 15;50(10):809-12 |
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Marek GJ, Wright RA, Gewirtz JC, Schoepp DD
A major role for thalamocortical afferents in serotonergic hallucinogen
receptor function in the rat neocortex.
Neuroscience
2001;105(2):379-92 |
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Thome J, Gewirtz JC, Weijers HG, Wiesbeck GA, Henn FA.
Genome polymorphism and alcoholism.
Pharmacogenomics
2000 Feb;1(1):63-71 |
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Gewirtz JC, Davis M.
Using pavlovian higher-order conditioning paradigms to investigate
the neural substrates of emotional learning and memory.
Learn
Mem. 2000 Sep-Oct;7(5):257-66. |
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