Research
Stress and fear play important roles in our lives, from influencing daily behaviors to precipitating symptoms of mental health disorders. My laboratory is performing multi-level analyses toward understanding the neurobiology of stress and fear. Specifically, we investigate how stress alters hippocampal plasticity and multiple brain-memory systems, and how fear memories are formed. These investigations consist of employing lesion, intra-cerebral drug infusion, and in vitro and in vivo neurophysiological recording techniques. Recently, we began employing 'predator-like' robots and 'closed economy' (self-contained living setting comprised of safe nest and dangerous foraging zones) to investigate defensive behaviors of rats in semi-naturalistic, dynamic risky environments. These ecologically-relevant studies address the neuronal basis of the basic approach-avoid conflicts that contribute to human psychopathologies.
Education
- February 9, 2023 Jeansok J. Kim & Eun Joo Kim Published in Molecular Psychiatry
- January 27, 2022 Jeansok Kim receives 12-month grant from the UW Royalty Research Fund
- July 8, 2019 Jeansok Kim’s research into fear responses in animals is featured in this Scientia article.
- October 3, 2012 Jeansok Kim has just been named the president-elect of the Pavlovian Society for the year 2013-2014.
- May 16, 2011 Jeansok Kim was named as one of the top 'Faces and Minds of Psychological Science' by APS.
- December 6, 2010 Jeansok Kim’s work on "Neuroscience of instinct: How animals overcome fear to obtain food" has received a lot of media coverage.
- October 26, 2010 Jeansok Kim has been awarded the 2010 Pavlovian Research Award.
- July 14, 2009 Ilene Bernstein’s work (along with co-authors Sabiha Barot, who just completed her doctoral studies; Ain Chung, a doctoral student; and Jeansok Kim) was featured in University Week
- April 20, 2009 Liliana Lengua and Jeansok Kim have been promoted to full professor.
- March 9, 2009 Jeansok Kim is the sole recipient of the 2009-10 Cattell Sabbatical Award.
- Kim EJ & Kim JJ (2023) Neurocognitive effects of stress: a metaparadigm perspective. Molecular Psychiatry 28: 2750-2763.
- Zambetti PR, Schuessler BP, Lecamp BE, Shin A, Kim EJ & Kim JJ (2022) Ecological analysis of Pavlovian fear conditioning in rats. Communications Biology 5:DOI 10.1038/s42003-022-03802-1.
- Ahn S, Kang Y, Lee JW, Jeong SJ, Lee YJ, Lee S, Kim J, Koo JW, Kim JJ & Jung MW (2021) A role of anterior cingulate cortex in the emergence of worker-parasite relationship. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (48) e2111145118.
- Kong M-S, Kim EJ, Park S, Zweifel LS, Huh Y, Cho J & Kim JJ (2021) 'Fearful-place' coding in the amygdala-hippocampal network. eLife 10:e72040.
- Kim EJ, Kong M-S, Park SG, Mizumori SJY, Cho J & Kim JJ (2018) Dynamic coding of predatory information between the prelimbic cortex and lateral amygdala in foraging rats. Science Advances 4:eaar7328.
- Kim EJ, Park M, Kong M-S, Park SG, Cho J & Kim JJ (2015) Alterations of hippocampal place cells in foraging rats facing a 'predatory' threat. Current Biology 25: 1-6.
- Kim E, Kim EJ, Yeh R, Shin M, Bobman J, Krasne FB & Kim JJ (2014) Amygdaloid and non-amygdaloid fear both influence avoidance of risky foraging in hungry rats. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281: 20133357.
- Kim EJ, Horovitz O, Pellman BA, Tan LM, Li Q, Richter-Levin G & Kim JJ (2013) Dorsal periaqueductal gray-amygdala pathway conveys both innate and learned fear responses in rats. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110: 14795-14800.
- Choi J-S & Kim JJ (2010) Amygdala regulates risk of predation in rats foraging in a dynamic fear environment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107: 21773-21777.