Behavioral Neuroscience

About Behavioral Neuroscience

The Behavioral Neuroscience team of researchers investigates the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders at varying levels. A major research focus is on stress and trauma-related conditions. There is also a particular strength in neuroendocrinology and immunology. To understand behavior, both in health and in disease states, animal models are used to study human conditions, and a neuroethology approach, where neural mechanisms underlying the natural behaviors of animals are studied.

Liberzon/Chen Lab (BRYAN)

Dr. Liberzon’s primary research interest centers on emotions, stress and stress-related disorders like PTSD, particularly in the regulation and dysregulation of stress response systems. His work integrates cognitive, functional neuroimaging, neuroendocrinological and genetic approaches to study stress, emotions, cognitive-emotion interactions and the effects of emotions on decision making. Dr. Liberzon has mentored multiple doctoral candidates, post-doctoral research fellows and junior faculty members have authored over 290 original manuscripts, and has authored and edited multiple books, book chapters and reviews, including Neurobiology of PTSD: From Brain to Mind. by Oxford University Press in 2016, and the Animal Models for PTSD, In Electronic Volume Frontiers Behavioral Neuroscience in 2020.

He served on NIH and VA study sections, served as a reviewer for Institute of Medicine, and Department of Defense Congressional reports as well as a reviewer for various international funding agencies. In the past, Dr. Liberzon served as an Associate Chair Department of the Psychiatry University of Michigan and Chief of Mental Health Service at the Ann Arbor VA Health System. Since 2018 he is the Professor and Department Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, at Texas A&M University, School of Medicine, Professor in the Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences, and faculty member of TAMIN. He is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, served as a president of Psychiatric Research Society, and editorial Board member for leading journals like Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology.

Dr. Chen is a behavioral neuroscientist with special interests in anxiety and trauma disorders, risk and resilience factors, sex hormones, and development. Current research projects in the laboratory investigate the role of female gonadal hormones in the etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder, epigenetic changes that follow after trauma or the development of PTSD-like symptoms, the link between PTSD and the consequent higher risk for heart disease, and programmed cell death in PTSD etiology. Career research highlights include the first identification of a potential risk factor for the higher prevalence of PTSD in women compared to men, some of the earliest work on the role of gonadal hormones in PTSD, and the involvement of androgen receptors in the anxiolytic effects of testosterone. Her work has been supported by the United States Department of Defense, and Clinical Science & Translational Research Institute at TAMU. She has served on the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and currently serves on the Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience editorial board, the Faculty Collaborative for the Study of Women’s Health and Sex Differences, and leads the TAMU Stress, Anxiety and Resilience Symposium.

Young Lab

Dr. Keith Young, Principal Investigator of Young Lab, engages in stress and neurodegeneration research. Young Lab engages researchers in serious mental and neurodegenerative conditions in Central Texas for over 30 years, specializing in human and animal genetic, brain molecular, and brain anatomical studies of Alzheimer’s, Major Depression, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD).