Postdoc at Yale: Systems neuroscience of anxiety

Postdoctoral associate in the Kaye lab, Yale University Department of Psychiatry

The Kaye lab is inviting applications for a position applying optical, electrophysiological, and computational approaches to anxiety and traumatic stress. The lab is affiliated with the Yale Department of Psychiatry, VA National Center for PTSD, and is located in a collaborative group of researchers in the Molecular Psychiatry Division (Connecticut Mental Health Center), and the Wu Tsai Institute. With several current postdocs in faculty searches (with K99, manuscript in revision), we are looking to recruit a systems neuroscience postdoc to work on the basis of anxiety.

Techniques: two-photon imaging, neuropixels electrophysiology, naturalistic and learned threat behavior, slice electrophysiology, fiber photometry of novel biosensors (GRAB, cAMP, etc), reinforcement learning/computational neuroscience

Key questions:

How do internal states structure threat-related behaviors?
How do neuromodulators interact to produce internal states during naturalistic danger?
How do neuromodulators enable rewriting emotional memories?
What happens after the GPCR – can we build a systems neuroscience of second messengers and emotional states?
 
Culture: Our studies have progressed due a strong bond within the group, and by a fun and creative environment. That is true within the lab, but also within our Division of Molecular Psychiatry, which has had a strong track record of producing successful faculty. To have the highest quality craftsmanship in our science, we try to have an environment where everyone is supported and valued.

Selected studies of relevance:

Basu A, Yang JH, Yu A, Glaeser-Khan S, Rondeau JA, Feng J, Krystal JH, Li Y, Kaye AP. Frontal norepinephrine represents a threat prediction error under uncertainty. Biological Psychiatry. 2024;96(4):256-267.
*Geva N, *Jefferson SJ, Krishnamurthy E, Anderson TL, Rondeau JA, Wehrle PH, Rosado AF, Pittenger C, Krystal JH, Kaye AP. MDMA enhances prefrontal plasticity and representational drift during fear extinction. bioRxiv. 2026.
Staszko SM, Krishnamurthy E, Lokanadham R, He JP, Basu A, Rondeau J, Yu AL, Krystal JH, Kaye AP. An adaptive noradrenergic-prefrontal circuit for innate avoidance of heights. bioRxiv. 2026.