Susan Sangha, PhD

Bio

Susan Sangha, PhD, received her bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia and her doctoral degree from the University of Calgary. She completed postdoctoral training at the Universität Münster in Germany and the Ernest Gallo Clinic & Research Center, University of California at San Francisco. She joined the faculty of Purdue University as an assistant professor where she rose to associate professor in Psychological Sciences. Dr. Sangha joined Indiana University School of Medicine in January 2022. Her research focuses on the neural circuits for emotion regulation, using a stimulus discrimination task she developed in animal models to assess how safety cues can regulate fear and reward behaviors.

Sangha Lab Website

Key Publications

Ng K, Sangha S (2022). Encoding of Conditioned Inhibitors of Fear in the Infralimbic Cortex. Cerebral Cortex. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhac450. PMID: 36411540. Link.

Hackleman A, Ibrahim M, Shim K, Sangha S (2022). Interaction of stress and alcohol on discriminating fear from safety and reward in male and female rats. Psychopharmacology (Berl). doi: 10.1007/s00213-022-06206-5. PubMed PMID: 35960326. Link.

Meyer HC, Sangha S, Radley JJ, LaLumiere RT, and Baratta MV (2021). Environmental Certainty Influences the Neural Systems Regulating Responses to Threat and Stress. Neurosci Biobeh Rev, 131: 1037-1055. Link

Krueger JN, Sangha S (2021). On the basis of sex: Differences in safety discrimination vs. conditioned inhibition. Behavioural Brain Research, 400: 113024. Link

Sangha S, Diehl M, Bergstrom H, Drew M (2020). Know Safety, No Fear. Neurosci Biobeh Rev, 108: 218-230. Link

Titles & Appointments

Associate Professor Of Psychiatry

Education

2005 PhD University of Calgary

1998 BS University of British Columbia
Research

Clinical disorders arising from maladaptive emotion regulation present a large burden on society worldwide and many of these disorders show comorbidity, for example, addiction with anxiety disorders. Even though there has been much research on reward and fear processing, the majority of studies have been conducted in parallel, investigating the neuronal circuitries separately. Our lab uses an animal behavioral paradigm designed to assess how safety cues can regulate fear and reward seeking behaviors in male and female rats. We hope by investigating how safety, fear and reward circuits integrate their functions to influence behavior, we will be able to better understand and treat disorders resulting from maladaptive emotion regulation.

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