Jorge Armony

Jorge Armony, PhD, conducts research on how the brain detects stimuli in the environment that may signal threat or danger, and how this mechanism interacts with other processes, such as consciousness, attention, and memory. Several state-of-the-art research techniques are used in search of these answers, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), behavioral and physiological measures (i.e. skin conductance and heart rate), as well as computational modeling. He has made significant contributions toward the understanding of psychiatric disorders involving dysfunctions of the fear system. For example, Jorge Armony recently found behavioural and anatomical correlates for the modulation of spatial attention by emotion using a fear conditioning paradigm. These findings further characterized the role of the amygdala in fear processing, as well as defining selective roles for the frontal, parietal, and lateral orbitofrontal cortices in spatial attention. His research focuses on the neural processing of emotional information and its interaction with other cognitive processes (such as attention, memory, awareness and decision-making) in healthy individuals, as well as in neurological (epilepsy) and psychiatric (PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder) populations. To do so, he employs a variety of neuroimaging techniques, such as fMRI, fNIRS, EEG and MEG. Much of the current understanding of stress-related disorders – including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), phobias, panic attack, and generalized anxiety – comes from studying how the brain processes fear.