Kevin S. LaBar, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience

Contact Info:

Office Location:
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.duke.edu/web/mind/level2/faculty/labar/default.htm

Teaching (Spring 2025):

• Neurosci 499.01, Current research in neurosci Synopsis

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Education:

Ph.D.	New York University	1996
B.A.	Lafayette College	1990

Specialties:

Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience

Research Interests: Emotional Memory

Current projects: Attentional cueing to emotional facial expressions, Emotional priming and procedural learning, Stress and context effects in fear learning, Cognitive neuroscience of emotion regulation

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.

Areas of Interest:

emotional memory
emotion-attention interactions
executive control of emotion

Duties:

C03E LSRC Bldg.

Postdocs Mentored

• Dawei Li (2013-present)
• Siobhan Hoscheidt (2011-2014)
• Fredrik Ahs (2010-2013)
• Steven Prince (2009-2014)
• Steven Stanton (2008-2013)
• Nicole Huff (2005-2009)
• Michael Zorawski (2003 - 2004)
• Reiko Graham (2002 - 2005)

Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1. Fichtenholtz, HM; Dean, HL; Dillon, DG; Yamasaki, H; McCarthy, G; LaBar, KS (2004). Emotion-attention network interactions during a visual oddball task.. Brain research. Cognitive brain research, 20(1), 67-80. [15130591], [doi]  [abs]
2. Dolcos, F; LaBar, KS; Cabeza, R (2004). Interaction between the amygdala and the medial temporal lobe memory system predicts better memory for emotional events.. Neuron, 42(5), 855-863. [15182723], [doi]  [abs]
3. LaBar, KS (2003). Emotional memory functions of the human amygdala.. Current neurology and neuroscience reports, 3(5), 363-364. [12914677], [doi]
4. LaBar, KS; Crupain, MJ; Voyvodic, JT; McCarthy, G (2003). Dynamic perception of facial affect and identity in the human brain.. Cereb Cortex, 13(10), 1023-1033. [12967919], [doi]  [abs]
5. Yamasaki, H; LaBar, KS; McCarthy, G (2002). Dissociable prefrontal brain systems for attention and emotion.. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 99(17), 11447-11451. [12177452], [doi]  [abs]