The downward spiral of pathological fear: how sex and stress shape threat responding in rats

This PhD project focuses on studying the role of extinction, avoidance and generalization in emotional disorders in an animal model. Concretely, we will examine the associations and causal relations between extinction, avoidance and generalization in a fear conditioning context. In addition, we plan to explore if there is an overlap in the neurobiological processes and neural networks that govern these processes. In the long run, we aim to investigate the role of stress and/or serotonergic processes in the emergence of impaired extinction, persistent avoidance and overgeneralization of conditioned fear