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Joe Biedenkapp
Research Interests:
I received my PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Our laboratory was very diverse, with people investigating everything from the role of microglia activation in chronic pain and aging, to the regulation of fear expression by the prefrontal cortex. My main focus was examining the role of the hippocampus in the formation of context and contextual fear memories. I published work in the areas of memory consolidation, reconsolidation, systems consolidation and the interaction between memory systems. I also continued to collaborate with colleagues in psychoneuroimmunology, working on projects such as the effects of early life infection on memory consolidation in adulthood and microglia 'priming' in aging.
Most recently I have been trying to develop a paradigm for examining what I call behavioral tagging. This paradigm is based upon the phenomenon of synaptic tagging and capture. Put most simply, the paradigm is based on the hypothesis that plasticity related products made outside of a learning event can be used for memory storage. Thus, the requirements for transcription and translation for the storage of any memory may largely depend upon the types of experiences that occur prior to and following the learning event. Such a model may more accurately capture human memory storage in which no learning event can truly be separated from the ongoing continuum of experience.
I am also working on a project that examines the competition between a hippocampus and extra-hippocampus memory system for the acquisition of contextual fear memories. My dissertation work suggested that there may be a role for the ventral subiculum, as a major output structure of the hippocampus, and the amygdala in this phenomenon. I am currently developing tools to more discretely manipulate the neural circuit between the ventral subiculum/hippocampus and amygdala as a way to understand the interaction among these brain structures. (View CV)
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