Moriel Zelikowsky

Moriel Zelikowsky, PhD

Languages spoken: Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew

Academic Information

Departments Primary - Neurobiology

Lab

Research Statement

Neural circuits underlying psychogenic stress.
Under normal circumstances, stress and fear enable us to flexibly adapt to conditions in our environment, greatly contributing to our success and survival. However, in cases of prolonged or extreme psychogenic stress, this normally advantageous system can exert detrimental effects on the brain and behavior, giving rise to disturbances in mental health such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, phobias, and social isolation. These disturbances can be extremely debilitating, targeting people regardless of age, sex, or ethnicity, and leading to increases in fear and violence in our society.

My lab is interested in understanding the brain circuits and neural mechanisms underlying various forms of stress. We apply cutting-edge, genetically-targeted molecular tools and techniques to identify, manipulate, and image from specific populations of neurons across a number of brain regions. We combine these techniques with in depth behavioral testing and computational analyses to dissect neural circuits and elucidate the role and function of particular cell populations within them.

Taking this molecular-behavioral approach, we ask questions such as how does the brain encode a single traumatic event? What does the brain look like after an extended period of social isolation? Can we target particular brain regions, cell populations, or signaling molecules to reverse the damaging effects of stress on behavior? In striving to answer these questions, we aim to better understand the brain and behavior, as well as potentially identify novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of mental health disorders.

Education History

Undergraduate University of California, Los Angeles
 BA
Doctoral Training University of California, Los Angeles
 PhD

Selected Publications

Journal Article

  1. Zelikowsky, M., Hast, T.A., Bennett, R.Z., Merjanian, M., Nocera, N.A., Ponnusamy, R., Fanselow, M.S. (2013). Cholinergic blockade frees fear extinction from its contextual dependency. Biol Psychiatry, 73(4), 345-52.
  2. Zelikowsky, M., Fanselow, M.S. (2010). Opioid regulation of Pavlovian overshadowing in fear conditioning. Behav Neurosci, 124(4), 510-9.
  3. Zelikowsky, M., Pham, D.L., Fanselow, M.S. (2012). Temporal factors control hippocampal contributions to fear renewal after extinction. Hippocampus, 22(5), 1096-106.
  4. Zelikowsky, M., Hui, M., Karigo, T., Choe, A., Yang, B., Blanco, M.R., Beadle, K., Gradinaru, V., Deverman, B.E., Anderson, D.J. (2018). The Neuropeptide Tac2 Controls a Distributed Brain State Induced by Chronic Social Isolation Stress. Cell, 173(5), 1265-1279.e19.
  5. Zelikowsky, M., Ding, K., Anderson, D.J. (2019). Neuropeptidergic control of an internal brain state produced by prolonged social isolation stress. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol.
  6. Zelikowsky M, Bissiere S, Fanselow M (2012). Contextual fear memories formed in the absence of the dorsal hippocampus decay across time. The Journal of neuroscience, 32(10), 3393-7.
  7. Zelikowsky M, Hersman S, Chawla MK, Barnes CA, Fanselow M (2014). Neuronal ensembles in amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex track differential components of contextual fear. The Journal of neuroscience, 34(25), 8462-6.
  8. Remedios R, Kennedy A, Zelikowsky M, Grewe BF, Schnitzer MJ, Anderson D (2017). Social behaviour shapes hypothalamic neural ensemble representations of conspecific sex. Nature, 550(7676), 388-392.
  9. Zelikowsky M, Bissiere S, Hast TA, Bennett RZ, Abdipranoto A, Vissel B, Fanselow M (2013). Prefrontal microcircuit underlies contextual learning after hippocampal loss. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(24), 9938-43.
  10. Hong W, Kennedy A, Burgos-Artizzu XP, Zelikowsky M, Navonne SG, Perona P, Anderson D (2015). Automated measurement of mouse social behaviors using depth sensing, video tracking, and machine learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(38), E5351-60.
  11. Bissiere S, Zelikowsky M, Ponnusamy R, Jacobs NS, Blair HT, Fanselow M (2011). Electrical synapses control hippocampal contributions to fear learning and memory. Science (New York, N.Y.), 331(6013), 87-91.
  12. Fanselow MS, Zelikowsky M, Perusini J, Barrera VR, Hersman (2014). Isomorphisms between psychological processes and neural mechanisms: from stimulus elements to genetic markers of activity. Neurobiology of learning and memory, 108, 5-13.
  13. Krasne FB, Fanselow MS, Zelikowsky (2011). Design of a neurally plausible model of fear learning. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 5, 41.
  14. Kunwar PS, Zelikowsky M, Remedios R, Cai H, Yilmaz M, Meister M, Anderson D (2015). Ventromedial hypothalamic neurons control a defensive emotion state. eLife, 4,
  15. Grammer J, Zelikowsky (2022). Neuroscience: The sting of social isolation. Current biology, 32(12), R572-R574.
  16. Torres ERS*, Stanojlovic M*, Zelikowsky M, Bonsberger J, Hean S, Mulligan C, Baldauf L, Fleming S, Masliah E, Chesselet MF, Fanselow MS, Richter (2021). Alpha-synuclein pathology, microgliosis, and parvalbumin neuron loss in the amygdala associated with enhanced fear in the Thy1-aSyn model of Parkinson's disease. Neurobiology of Disease,
  17. Miller CT, Chen X, Donaldson ZR, Marlin BJ, Tsao DY, Williams ZM, Zelikowsky M, Zeng H, Hong (2024). The BRAIN initiative: a pioneering program on the precipice. Nature neuroscience, 27(12), 2264-2266.
  18. Grammer J, Valles R, Bowles A, Zelikowsky (2025). SAUSI: an integrative assay for measuring social aversion and motivation. Cell Reports Methods,
  19. Gatlin RE, Gagon J, Kwak D, Park S, Walker H, Kronheim L, Everett T, Covington A, Fluck MM, Zickmund T, Frost NA, Zelikowsky (2025). Co-release of opposing signaling molecules controls the escalation and release of aggression. bioRxiv,
  20. Sattler K, Conoscenti MA, Hedges A, Ortega J, Miller R, Owen E, Hanson R, Zelikowsky M (2025). Stress induces distinct social behavior states encoded by the ventral hippocampus. bioRxiv,
  21. Sattler K, Conoscenti M, Hedges A, Ortega J, Miller R, Owen E, Hanson R, Zelikowsky (2025). Stress induces distinct social behavior states encoded by the ventral hippocampus. bioRxiv,
  22. Tuñon-Ortiz A, Tränkner D, Brockway SN, Raines O, Mahnke A, Grega M, Zelikowsky M, Williams M (2024). Inhibitory neurons marked by a connectivity molecule regulate memory precision. bioRxiv,

Review

  1. Craske, M.G., Kircanski, K., Zelikowsky, M., Mystkowski, J., Chowdhury, N., Baker, A. (2008). Optimizing inhibitory learning during exposure therapy. [Review]. Behav Res Ther, 46, (1), 5-27.
  2. Love J, Zelikowsky (2020). Stress Varies Along the Social Density Continuum. Frontiers in systems neuroscience, 14, 582985.
  3. Marvar PJ, Andero R, Hurlemann R, Lago TR, Zelikowsky M, Dabrowska (2021). Limbic Neuropeptidergic Modulators of Emotion and Their Therapeutic Potential for Anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Journal of neuroscience, 41(5), 901-910.
  4. Padilla-Coreano N, Tye KM, Zelikowsky (2022). Dynamic influences on the neural encoding of social valence. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 23(9), 535-550.
  5. Flavell SW, Gogolla N, Lovett-Barron M, Zelikowsky (2022). The emergence and influence of internal states. Neuron, 110(16), 2545-2570.
  6. Lai TT, Gericke B, Feja M, Conoscenti M, Zelikowsky M, Richter (2023). Anxiety in synucleinopathies: neuronal circuitry, underlying pathomechanisms and current therapeutic strategies. NPJ Parkinson's disease, 9(1), 97.
  7. Asahina K, Zelikowsky (2025). Comparative Perspectives on Neuropeptide Function and Social Isolation. Biological psychiatry, 97(10), 942-952.

Book Chapter

  1. Zelikowsky M, Fanselow M (2011). Conditional analgesia, negative feedback and error correction.