Kevin S LaBar, Associate Professor

Kevin S LaBar

Associate Professor
PhD, New York University, 1996
mailing address: Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Duke University Box 90999 Durham, NC 27708
lab: C03E LSRC Bldg. email:
phone: (919) 681-0664

research interests | publications | courses

Research Summary:
 My research focuses on the neuroscience of emotion-cognition interactions in the human brain, with an emphasis on understanding how emotional events are linked to memory and attention systems. The laboratory combines studies of neurologic and psychiatric patients with studies of healthy adults using functional MRI, event-related potential and psychophysiological recording techniques. Our initial studies have shown that the amygdala is a critical brain structure involved in mediating arousal effects on both conditioned fear learning and explicit memory. Currently, this line of work is being extended to understand how the amygdala interacts with cortical brain regions at different stages of memory processing and the degree to which amygdala-dependent processing is under attentional and executive control.

Representative Publications:   (More Publications)

  1. Fichtenholtz, H. M., Dean, H. L., Dillon, D. G>, Yamasaki, H., McCarthy, G., & LaBar, K. S. (2004). Emotion-attention network interactions during a visual oddball task. Cognitive Brain Research, 20, 67-80.
  2. Dolcos, F., LaBar, K. S., & Cabeza, R. (2004). Interaction between the amygdala and the medial temporal to be memory systems predicts betta memory for emotional events. Neuron, 42, 855-863.
  3. LaBar, K. S. (2003). Emotional memory functions of the human amygdala. Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, 3, 363-364.
  4. K.S. LaBar, Crupain, M.J. Voyvodic, J.B., & McCarthy, G. (2003). Dynamic Percpetion of Facial Affect and Identity in the Human Brain. Cerebral Cortex, 13, 1023-1033.
  5. Yamasaki, H., LaBar, K.S. & McCarthy, G. (2002). Dissociable Prefrontal Brain Systems for Attention and Emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 99, 11447-11451.

Lab Personnel: 
LeeMarie Ayers (lab manager), Nineequa Blanding (Duke PREP student), Daniel Dillon (grad student), Harlan Fichtenholtz (grad student), Nicole Huff (postdoctoral associate), Brian Johnson (work-study student), Laura Thomas (grad student), Sheena Waters (research assistant)

Courses (Fall 2009):

  • Psy 241s.01, Affective neuroscience Synopsis
    Lsrc b240, Tu 02:50 PM-05:20 PM
  • Psy 359s.01, Principles in cog neuro i
    Lsrc b240, MW 01:15 PM-02:30 PM