Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions: Michael S. Fanselow

The APA Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions honors psychologists who have made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology. "For his systematic and integrative research on the neural and behavioral mechanisms of Pavlovian fear learning. Guided by a functional behavior perspective, Michael S. Fanselow's pioneering studies of conditioned analgesia describe a fundamental biological mechanism for regulating associative learning through error correction. His analysis of the organization of defensive behavior in relation to predatory imminence has yielded a novel theoretical framework for understanding fear, anxiety, and panic. His research has revealed an essential neural architecture for fear conditioning that not only informs how we understand normal and pathological fear but also demonstrates how rigorous neural and behavioral approaches enrich and strengthen one another." (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).