Stephen Andrew Maren (born November 7, 1967) is an American behavioral neuroscientist investigating the brain mechanisms of emotional memory, particularly the role context plays in the behavioral expression of fear. He has discovered brain circuits regulating

context-dependent memory In psychology, context-dependent memory is the improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. In a simpler manner, "when events are represented in memory, contextual informat ...

, including mapping functional connections between the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala that are involved in the expression and

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

of learned fear responses. Maren obtained his undergraduate education at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

, graduating in psychology (BS) in 1989. His undergraduate research resulted in an honors thesis that described, for the first time, the activity of basolateral amygdala neurons during this form of learning. He obtained his PhD in Biological Sciences (Neurobiology) in 1993 at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. Maren explored the role for glutamate receptors in hippocampal

long-term potentiation In neuroscience, long-term potentiation (LTP) is a persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity. These are patterns of synaptic activity that produce a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons ...

and the relationship of long-term potentiation to learning and memory. He was the first to demonstrate that expression of long-term potentiation is associated with an increase in postsynaptic glutamate receptors. Maren received his post-doctoral training with Michael S. Fanselow at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

from 1993 to 1996. He established a role for amygdaloid long-term potentiaion in Pavlovian

fear conditioning Pavlovian fear conditioning is a behavioral paradigm in which organisms learn to predict aversive events. It is a form of learning in which an aversive stimulus (e.g. an electrical shock) is associated with a particular neutral context (e.g., a r ...

, as well as defining the role for the hippocampus in contextual learning and memory. Maren joined the faculty of

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1996 as an assistant professor in the Biopsychology Area in the Department of Psychology. He moved to Texas A&M University in 2012, where he is the Charles H. Gregory Chair of Liberal Arts and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and a Presidential Impact Fellow at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

. He was named University Distinguished Professor in 2018. Maren has received the Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology (Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience) in 2001 and the D. O. Hebb Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 2017, both from the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

. He was awarded the W. Horsley Gantt Medal by the Pavlovian Society in 2019. He is a fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. His research is widely cited and he is among the top 1% of cited neuroscientists in the world. Maren's research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1995 and he has received s Memory and Cognitive Disorders award from the McKnight Endowment for Neuroscience and a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grant from the

Brain & Behavior Research Foundation The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that funds mental health Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. It like ...

. He is a member of the Scientific Council of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and is co-editor-in-chief of

Behavioural Brain Research ''Behavioural Brain Research'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes articles in the field of behavioural neuroscience. Volume 1 appeared in 1980 and issues appeared 6 times per year; as submissions ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maren, Stephen Living people 1967 births American neuroscientists University of Michigan faculty