Science Pub: Fear and the Brain

Radhika Reddy brings her talk on the brain circuitry of fear to the McMenamins Kennedy School Theater on Tuesday, October 20, as part of the Science Pub series. Reddy is a neurobiologist and a teaching associate professor in the biology department at Portland State University, and she frames fear not as a brain flaw, but as an ancient survival system that favors false alarms over fatal mistakes.

Over the course of the evening, she guides the audience through the brain's fear circuitry: how the amygdala associates ordinary sights and sounds with danger, why learned fears are so persistent, and how the prefrontal cortex helps us regain control. One of the more counterintuitive points she makes is that overcoming fear involves creating a new memory of safety rather than erasing the original one. From there, she touches on what that reveals about post-traumatic stress disorder and emerging approaches to weakening traumatic memories.

Science Pub is a casual lecture series held in venues across the region, and this one is recommended for ages 10 and over. If you can't make it in person, there's a Zoom option available with advance registration.

The talk runs from 7 to 9 PM. There's a suggested donation of $8; presale tickets are sold out, but a limited number will be available at the door starting at 6 PM, so advance tickets are recommended if you're planning to go.