Schiller Lab | Neuroscience Labs - Icahn School of Medicine

Schiller Laboratory

of Affective Neuroscience

Can we change our emotions?

how emotions are formed in the human brain

Research

Can we change our emotions? Our lab is interested in discovering the neural mechanisms underlying emotional control and flexibility. Because the environment we live in is constantly changing, we need to continuously update our emotional responses. In extreme situations, when emotional memories become traumatic, we might even wish to ‘erase’ emotional memories altogether. Our research team uses neuroimaging, pharmacology and psychophysiology to understand the neural mechanisms that make such emotional flexibility. We examine emotional processing in the normal brain and in patients with anxiety disorders, and hope to promote new forms of treatment.

Publications

2019 - 2018

Homan, P., Levy, I., Feltham, E., Gordon, C., Hu, J., Li, J., Pietrzak, R., Southwick, S., Krystal, J., Harpaz-Rotem, I., and Schiller, D. (2019). Neural computations of threat in the aftermath of combat trauma. Nature Neuroscience, in press. [Data-OSF]

Hu, J., Wang, Z., Feng, X., Long, C., and Schiller, D. (2019). Post-reminder oxytocin facilitates next day extinction in humans. Psychopharmacology, in press. [Data-OSF].

Corchs, F., and Schiller, D. (2019). Threat-related disorders as persistent motivational states of defense. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 26, 62-68.

Orederu, T., and Schiller, D. (2019). The Dynamic Memory Engram Lifecycle: Reactivation, Destabilization, Reconsolidation. The Cognitive Neurosciences, 6th Edition. Poeppel D, Mangun GR and Gazzaniga, MS. eds. MIT Press.

Reddan, M., Wager, T., and Schiller, D. (2018). Attenuating neural threat expression with imagination. Neuron, 100,994-1005. [Data – OSF].

Schafer, M., and Schiller, D. (2018). Navigating social space. Neuron, 100, 476-489

*Featured in Neuron’s 30th year anniversary issue.

Hu, J., Wang, W., Homan, P., Wang, P., Zheng, X., and Schiller, D. (2018). Reminder duration determines threat memory modification in humans. Scientific Reports, 8:8848. [Data – OSF].

Orederu, T., and Schiller, D. (2018). Fast and slow extinction pathways in defensive survival circuits. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 24, 96-103.

Montagrin, A., Saiote, C., and Schiller, D. (2018). The social hippocampus. Hippocampus 28, 672-679.

*Featured on journal cover.

Denny, B.T., Fan, J., Fels, S., Galitzer, H., Schiller, D., Siever, L.J., and Koenigsberg, H.W. (2018). Sensitization of the neural salience network to repeated emotional stimuli following initial habituation in borderline personality disorder patients. American Journal of Psychiatry, 175, 657-664.

*Editorial commentary by Mary Phillips.

Hildebrandt, T., Schultz, K., Schiller, D., Heywood, A., Goodman, W., and Sysko, R. (2018). Evidence of prefrontal hyperactivation of food-cue reversal learning in adolescents with anorexia nervosa. Behaviour Research and Therapy 111, 36-43.

2017 - 2014

Lee, J. L., Nader, K., & Schiller, D. (2017). An Update on Memory Reconsolidation Updating. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 21, 531-545.

*Featured on journal cover

Homan, P., Lin, Q., Murrough, J. W., Soleimani, L., Bach, D. R., Clem, R. L., & Schiller, D. (2017). Prazosin during threat discrimination boosts memory of the safe stimulus. Learning & Memory, 24(11), 597-601. [Data – GitHub]

Homan, P., Ely, B. A., Yuan, M., Brosch, T., Ng, J., Trope, Y., & Schiller, D. (2017). Aversive smell associations shape social judgment. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 144, 86-95. [Data – GitHub]

Homan, P., Reddan, M. C., Brosch, T., Koenigsberg, H. W., & Schiller, D. (2017). Aberrant link between empathy and social attribution style in borderline personality disorder. Journal of psychiatric research, 94, 163-171. [Data – GitHub]

Clem, R. L., & Schiller, D. (2016). New Learning and Unlearning: Strangers or Accomplices in Threat Memory Attenuation? Trends in neurosciences, 39(5), 340-351.

Delgado, M. R., Beer, J. S., Fellows, L. K., Huettel, S. A., Platt, M. L., Quirk, G. J., & Schiller, D. (2016). Viewpoints: dialogues on the functional role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Nature neuroscience, 19(12), 1545-1552.

Kroes, M.C.W., Schiller, D., LeDoux, JE., and Phelps, A.E. (2016). Translational approaches targeting reconsolidation. Current Topics in Behavioral Neurosciences 28, 197-230.

Homan, P., and Schiller, D. (2016). Neuroscience: This is not a spider. Current Biology 26, R882-R902.

Schiller, D. (2016). Hacking the brain to overcome fear. Nature Human Behavior 1:0010.

Schiller, D. (2016). Running to Forget. Int J Neuropsychopharmacology 19, 1-2.

Tavares, R., William, C., Grossman, Y., Mendelsohn, A., Shapiro, M., Trope, Y., and Schiller, D. (2015). A map for social navigation in the human brain. Neuron 87, 231-243.

*Commentary by Howard Eichenbaum, The hippocampus as a cognitive map…of social space. Neuron 87, 9-11

Schiller, D., Eichenbaum, H., Buffalo, E. A., Davachi, L., Foster, D. J., Leutgeb, S., & Ranganath, C. (2015). Memory and space: towards an understanding of the cognitive map. The Journal of Neuroscience, 35(41), 13904-13911.

*Featured on journal cover

Zhang, Z., Mendelsohn, A., Manson, K. F., Schiller, D., & Levy, I. (2015). Dissociating value representation and inhibition of inappropriate affective response during reversal learning in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. eneuro, 2(6), ENEURO-0072.

Hildebrandt T, Grotzinger A, Reddan M, Greif R, Levy I, Goodman W, and Schiller D (2015) Testing the disgust conditioning theory of food-avoidance in adolescents with recent onset anorexia nervosa. Behaviour Research and Therapy 71, 131-138

Bentz, D., & Schiller, D. (2015). Threat processing: models and mechanisms. Wiley interdisciplinary reviews: cognitive science, 6(5), 427-439.

Schiller, D. (2015). Behavioral Genetics: Of Mice, Men, and Internal Bliss. Current Biology 25, R455-R457.

Mendelsohn, A., Pine, A., & Schiller, D. (2014). Between thoughts and actions: motivationally salient cues invigorate mental action in the human brain. Neuron, 81(1), 207-217.

*Faculty 1000 recommendation

Collins, K. A., Mendelsohn, A., Cain, C. K., & Schiller, D. (2014). Taking action in the face of threat: neural synchronization predicts adaptive coping. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(44), 14733-14738.

Zhang, Z., Manson, K. F., Schiller, D., & Levy, I. (2014). Impaired associative learning with food rewards in obese women. Current Biology, 24(15), 1731-1736.

*Commentary in Current Biology by Davidson TL and Martin AA, Obesity: Cognitive impairment and the failure to ‘eat right’ the failure to “eat right”.

*Included in Nature Reviews Neuroscience Research Highlights, August 2014

*Faculty 1000 recommendation

Apergis-Schoute, A. M., Schiller, D., LeDoux, J. E., & Phelps, E. A. (2014). Extinction resistant changes in the human auditory association cortex following threat learning. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 113, 109-114.

Mungee, A., Kazzer, P., Feeser, M., Nitsche, M. A., Schiller, D., & Bajbouj, M. (2014). Transcranial direct current stimulation of the prefrontal cortex: a means to modulate fear memories. Neuroreport, 25(7), 480-484.

Schiller, D. (2014). A Lighter Shade of Trauma. Biological Psychiatry 76, 838-839.

2013 - 2007

Schiller, D., Kanen, J. W., LeDoux, J. E., Monfils, M. H., & Phelps, E. A. (2013). Extinction during reconsolidation of threat memory diminishes prefrontal cortex involvement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(50), 20040-20045.

Brosch, T., Schiller, D., Mojdehbakhsh, R., Uleman, J. S., & Phelps, E. A. (2013). Neural mechanisms underlying the integration of situational information into attribution outcomes. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 8(6), 640-646.

Collins, K. A., & Schiller, D. (2013). What can fear and reward learning teach us about depression?. In Behavioral Neurobiology of Depression and Its Treatment (pp. 223-242). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Phelps, A.E. and Schiller, D. (2013) Reconsolidation in humans. Memory Reconsolidation. Alberini CM, ed. Academic Press.

Murrough, J.W., Schiller, D., and Charney, D.S. (2012). Neurocircuitry of anxiety disorders: Focus on panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Drug Discovery for Psychiatric Disorders. RSC Drug Discovery Series No. 28; Rankovic C, Bingham M, Nestler EJ, Hargreaves R, eds. The Royal Society Of Chemistry.

Schiller, D., Raio, C. M., & Phelps, E. A. (2012). Extinction training during the reconsolidation window prevents recovery of fear. Journal of visualized experiments: JoVE, (66).

Schiller, D., & Phelps, E. A. (2011). Does reconsolidation occur in humans?. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 5.

Li, J., Schiller, D., Schoenbaum, G., Phelps, E. A., & Daw, N. D. (2011). Differential roles of human striatum and amygdala in associative learning. Nature neuroscience, 14(10), 1250-1252.

Schiller, D. (2011). Affective Neuroscience: Tracing the Trace of Fear. Current Biology 21, R695-R696

Schiller, D., & Delgado, M. R. (2010). Overlapping neural systems mediating extinction, reversal and regulation of fear. Trends in cognitive sciences, 14(6), 268-276.

Schiller, D., Monfils, M. H., Raio, C. M., Johnson, D. C., LeDoux, J. E., & Phelps, E. A. (2010). Preventing the return of fear in humans using reconsolidation update mechanisms. Nature, 463(7277), 49.

*Commentary in Nature News & Views: Quirk GJ and Milad MR, Neuroscience: Editing out fear

*Selected by Nature NeuroPod as one of the most important studies of the year

*Faculty 1000 ‘exceptional’ recommendation

Quirk, G. J., Paré, D., Richardson, R., Herry, C., Monfils, M. H., Schiller, D., & Vicentic, A. (2010). Erasing fear memories with extinction training. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(45), 14993-14997.

Freeman, J. B., Schiller, D., Rule, N. O., & Ambady, N. (2010). The neural origins of superficial and individuated judgments about ingroup and outgroup members. Human brain mapping, 31(1), 150-159.

Schiller, D. and Johansen, J. (2009). Prelimbic prefrontal neurons drive fear expression: A clue for extinction-reconsolidation interactions. The Journal of Neuroscience 29, 13432-13434.

Schiller, D., Freeman, J. B., Mitchell, J. P., Uleman, J. S., & Phelps, E. A. (2009). A neural mechanism of first impressions. Nature neuroscience, 12(4), 508-514.

LeDoux, J.E., Schiller, D., and Cain, C.K. (2009). Emotional Reaction And Action: From Threat Processing To Goal Directed Behavior. The Cognitive Neurosciences, 4^th Edition. Gazzaniga, MS. ed. MIT Press

Schiller, D., Levy, I., Niv, Y., LeDoux, J. E., & Phelps, E. A. (2008). From fear to safety and back: reversal of fear in the human brain. Journal of Neuroscience, 28(45), 11517-11525.

Schiller, D., Cain, C. K., Curley, N. G., Schwartz, J. S., Stern, S. A., LeDoux, J. E., & Phelps, E. A. (2008). Evidence for recovery of fear following immediate extinction in rats and humans. Learning & Memory, 15(6), 394-402.

Schiller, D. and Phelps, E.A. (2008). The Neuroscience Of Emotional Learning. Oxford Companion to Affective Sciences. Sander, D & Scherer, KR. Eds. Oxford University Press.

LeDoux, J.E. and Schiller, D. (2008). What Animal Fear Models Have Taught Us About Human Amygdala Function? The Human Amygdala. Whalen, PJ & Phelps, EA. eds. New York: Guilford.

Delgado, M.R., Li, J., Schiller, D,. and Phelps, E.A. (2008) The role of striatum in aversive learning and aversive prediction errors. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 1511, 3787-3800.

2006 & Older

Schiller, D., Zuckerman, L., & Weiner, I. (2006). Abnormally persistent latent inhibition induced by lesions to the nucleus accumbens core, basolateral amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex is reversed by clozapine but not by haloperidol. Journal of psychiatric research, 40(2), 167-177.

Schiller, D., & Weiner, I. (2005). Basolateral amygdala lesions in the rat produce an abnormally persistent latent inhibition with weak preexposure but not with context shift. Behavioural brain research, 163(1), 115-121.

Gal, G., Schiller, D., & Weiner, I. (2005). Latent inhibition is disrupted by nucleus accumbens shell lesion but is abnormally persistent following entire nucleus accumbens lesion: the neural site controlling the expression and disruption of the stimulus preexposure effect. Behavioural brain research, 162(2), 246-255.

Joel, D., Doljansky, J., & Schiller, D. (2005). ‘Compulsive’lever pressing in rats is enhanced following lesions to the orbital cortex, but not to the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala or to the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. European Journal of Neuroscience, 21(8), 2252-2262.

Lobel, T. E., Nov-Krispin, N., Schiller, D., Lobel, O., & Feldman, A. (2004). Gender discriminatory behavior during adolescence and young adulthood: A developmental analysis. Journal of youth and adolescence, 33(6), 535-546.

Schiller, D., & Weiner, I. (2004). Lesions to the basolateral amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex but not to the medial prefrontal cortex produce an abnormally persistent latent inhibition in rats. Neuroscience, 128(1), 15-25.

Weiner, I., Schiller, D., Gaisler-Salomon, I., Green, A., & Joel, D. (2003). A comparison of drug effects in latent inhibition and the forced swim test differentiates between the typical antipsychotic haloperidol, the atypical antipsychotics clozapine and olanzapine, and the antidepressants imipramine and paroxetine. Behavioural pharmacology, 14(3), 215-222.

Weiner, I., Schiller, D., & Gaisler-Salomon, I. (2003). Disruption and potentiation of latent inhibition by risperidone: the latent inhibition model of atypical antipsychotic action. Neuropsychopharmacology, 28(3), 499.

Shadach, E., Gaisler, I., Schiller, D., & Weiner, I. (2000). The latent inhibition model dissociates between clozapine, haloperidol, and ritanserin. Neuropsychopharmacology, 23(2), 151-161.

Weiner, I., Gaisler, I., Schiller, D., Green, A., Zuckerman, L., & Joel, D. (2000). Screening of antipsychotic drugs in animal models. Drug Development Research, 50(3‐4), 235-249.

Meet the Team

Denise Croote

PhD Candidate

Denise.Croote@icahn.mssm.edu

Temidayo Orederu

MD/PhD Candidate

Temidayo.Orederu@icahn.mssm.edu

Matthew Schafer

PhD Candidate

Matthew.Schafer@icahn.mssm.edu

Ariel De Leon

MS Candidate

Ariel.Deleon@icahn.mssm.edu

Madeline O'Brien

PhD Rotation Student

maddie.obrien@icahn.mssm.edu

Madeleine Perkins

PhD Rotation Student

madeleine.perkins@icahn.mssm.edu

Media

The Naked Scientists. [Article] Can imagination set you free from fear? [Podcast] Using imagination to unlearn fear.

The Moth Radio Hour. Forgetting Fear. By studying memory, Daniela connects with her father, who refuses to speak about his memories of the holocaust.

schiller partial recall
The New Yorker (May 19, 2014) “Partial Recall” by Michael Specter

Studio 360 Live: Stories on memory.
Neuroscientist Daniela Schiller’s father rebuffed her attempts to talk about his experiences of the Holocaust. It wasn’t until years later that she came to understand him better.

The Royal Society: “Does emotion serve a particular function? How important is emotion in artistic expression? How do we study emotion in science and the arts?”

Daniela Schiller joins Ray Dolan, Professor of Neuropsychiatry at UCL, on a panel of experts representing the literary world and the visual arts to discuss these and other fascinating questions.

Nature Neuropod Nature: NeuroPod is the neuroscience podcast from Nature, produced in association with the Dana Foundation. NeuroPod included us in the most important studies of the year 2009.

The Washington Post. Your imagination could help conquer your fears.

Hippocampus makes ‘social’ maps” by Laura Sanders, Science News (April 30, 2016). Brain structure known tracking physical locations also monitors other relationships.

MIT Technology Review: Repairing Bad Memories by Stephen S Hall.

Guardian.co.uk: “Research suggests a simple way to neutralise memories that evoke fear, but perhaps it is by learning to cope with life’s random tragedies that we develop as humans?”

NYAM logo DNAinfo.com: Our research was awarded the Blavatnik award of the New York Academy of Sciences.

NYT

New York Times: “A new study suggests that doctors can take advantage of the brain’s natural updating process—the way it might soften its impression of, say, pit bulls after seeing a playful one—to treat phobias, post-traumatic stress and other anxiety disorders.”

The Amygdaloids are a New York City band made up of scientists who shed their scientific garb at night and take to the stage with songs about love and life peppered with insights drawn from research about mind and brain and mental disorders.

Falling Walls Foundation. How Neuroscience Unlocks our Mental Maps of the Past by Daniela Schiller.

Memory Hackers, NOVA (February 10, 2016). Memory is the glue that binds our mental lives. Without it, we’d be prisoners of the present, unable to use the lessons of the past to change our future. From our first kiss to where we put our keys, memory represents who we are and how we learn and navigate the world. But how does it work?

EmTech: Neuroengineering – The Future is Now: Daniela Schiller, Associate Professor, Mount Sinai Hospital on groundbreaking research on memory , and whether we might enable us to block highly traumatic memories.

TSN – The Science Network: Daniela Schiller talks to Roger Bingham about how she got into science and reviews research, including her own, on modifying fear memories. ted_youth.

Nature: Video on our non-invasive way to affect memory reconsolidation in humans.

ABC News. PTSD treatment? When exposure therapy isn’t an option, imagining the scenario might help.

The Ripple Project – “Reconsolidation” documentary
A daughter discovers synchronicity between her scientific career and her father’s method of coping with his traumatic past. Reconsolidation begins with a clinical look into a neurological experiment as neuroscientist Dr. Daniela Schiller, labors to discover the key to rewriting fearful memories — reconsolidation

https://vimeo.com/94723267

How to erase bad memories by R. Douglas Fields, Scientific American (Nov 25, 2013).

TEDYouth: “The act of remembering is a new experience in itself. Each time we retrieve a memory and re-store it, it’s a little bit different—what we remember is not the original event, it’s our latest version of it.”

Daniela Schiller joins a group of passionate speakers who inspire creativity, share mind-shifting stories, and engage the TED Youth audience in ways that every student deserves (Nov. 19).

Brain Guardian

Guardian.co.uk: “Ancient brain circuits light up so we can judge people on first impressions.”

Essays

Falling Walls: Social Relationships as a Spatial Problem, by Daniela Schiller, Scientific American.

Schiller, D. (2016). Running to Forget. Int J Neuropsychopharmacology 19, 1-2.

Snakes in the MRI Machine: A Study of Courage. What courage looks like in the brain—in real time. By Daniela Schiller in Scientific American

Yielding to Neural Temptation. By Daniela Schiller in Huffington Post Science.

The Cooper Square Review of Science, Technology, and Medicine (2018). Grits and Grantsmanship. What if Jane Austen wrote a story on the social intricacies of laboratory life?

Behavioral Genetics: Of Mice, Men, and Internal Bliss by Daniela Schiller in Current Biology

The Courage to Fear. Even if subdued, fear is always there, lurking. Waiting for the right moment to erupt and take over your will. What are the brain mechanisms underlying our fear memories, and can we change them? By Daniela Schiller in Huffington Post Science.

Homan P and Schiller D (2016) Neuroscience: This is not a spider. Current Biology 26, R882-R902

A Lighter Shade of Trauma by Daniela Schiller in Biological Psychiatry.

Affective Neuroscience: Tracing the Trace of Fear. The trace of fear has been elusive and difficult to discern in the human brain. Researchers have come up with a clever new way to track it down. By Daniela Schiller in Current Biology.

Schiller, D. (2016). Hacking the brain to overcome fear. Nature Human Behavior 1:0010.

A Labtime Story By Daniela Schiller for Nature.com

How Free Is Your Will? A clock face, advanced neurosurgery—and startling philosophical questions about the decision to act. By Daniela Schiller and David Carmel in Scientific American.

Lab Awards

2018 Denise Croote – Best Research Achievement in Neuroscience (BRAIN) Award

2018 Denise Croote – NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

2018 MacKenzie Boatman – 2nd Place at the Regeneron Westchester Science & Engineering Fair

2018 MacKenzie Boatman – 1st Place at the Westchester Rockland Junior Science and Humanities Symposium

2018 Temidayo Orederu – NIMH R01 administrative supplement

2018 Daniela Schiller – Friedman Brain Institute Research Scholar Award

2017 Felipe Corchs – São Paulo Research Foundation Fellowship

2017 Denise Croote – 2nd place in the Brain Imaging Center’s 4th Annual Symposium Poster Competition

2017 Denise Croote – 1st place at the Graduate School Data Blitz Competition

2017 Philipp Homan – 3rd place in Mt Sinai’s FBI Neuroscience Retreat Poster Competition

2016 Alison Montagrin – Swiss National Science Foundation early post-doctoral mobility program award

2015 Philipp Homan – Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship for prospective researchers

2014 Daniela Schiller – Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award in the Neurosciences

2014 Daniela Schiller – The Harold and Golden Lamport Research Award

2014 Daniela Schiller – Kavli Scientist-Writer Fellow

2014 Caroline Overacker – Fisher Scientific Award for an outstanding behavioral project

2013 Daniela Schiller – Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, National Academy of Sciences

2013 Daniela Schiller – Le Foundation Award

2013 Dorothee Bentz – Swiss National Science Foundation Fellowship for prospective researchers

2013 Abigail Orlando – Intel ISEF 2013 1st place winner

2012 Marianne Reddan – Best Talk Award in Mt Sinai’s FBI Neuroscience Retreat

2012 Lee Lau – Best Poster Award in Mt Sinai’s TMII Retreat

2012 May Yuan – Best poster award SANS 2012

2010 Daniela Schiller – Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, The New York Academy of Sciences

Journal Covers

Upcoming Events

Monday December 10, 3pm – 5:30pm.

Annual Meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), Hollywood, Florida:

Neural Computations as Markers of Stress, Anxiety and Trauma. Chair: John Krystal, Co-Chair: Daniela Schiller, Speakers: Candace Raio, Ifat Levy, Daniela Schiller, and Rony Paz.