ADRIENNE TAREN

Occupational Neuro-Stress & Performance Laboratory

Our Research Approach

Our long-term research goal is to investigate maladaptive defensive behaviors in clinical anxiety, to generate insights that can inform the development of targeted treatments. We aim to create an environment that is conducive to rigor, creativity, and innovation.

For many individuals, threat-related behaviors are just one facet of life: the desire to avoid, neutralize, or seek reassurance about threatening situations coexists with a variety of other goals and values. But for those with clinical anxiety, including those with diagnoses of anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder, threat-related behaviors often take up an enormous amount of time and energy, resulting in serious functional impairment.

While great strides have been made in understanding and treating clinical anxiety, these patterns of costly, unnecessary threat-related behavior are not yet fully understood. To address this gap, the Berg Lab brings a decision-science approach to the investigation of clinical anxiety, with an emphasis on task-based neuroimaging methods. Through this work, we hope to contribute to a comprehensive account of threat-related decision-making that will inform future treatments for clinical anxiety.

CONTACT DR. TAREN

Research Program Highlights

Main Questions

Which neural circuit, molecular, and genetic mechanisms confer vulnerability or resilience to post-traumatic stress in chronically trauma-exposed professionals?
How do these mechanistic signatures map onto day-to-day function and symptom trajectories, and can multimodal “digital phenotyping” improve prediction of PTSD onset and course?
Can scalable, personalized interventions modulate these circuits to prevent or reduce PTSD symptoms in real-world field settings?

Approach

We use neuroimaging, wearable technology, and immune system biomarkers to model underlying mechanisms and responses to behavioral and neuromodulatory interventions.

Future Directions

The lab’s next projects will leverage low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) neuromodulation, Floatation-REST therapy, and acute exercise as a potential therapeutic intervention for PTSD symptoms in frontline healthcare workers.

Scientific Background

Dr. Taren received her BA in Neuroscience and Economics from Middlebury College, and subsequently completed a post-baccalaureate fellowship in functional brain imaging under Dr. Scott Huettel at Duke University, working on the neural underpinnings of economic decision making. She received her MD and PhD (Neuroscience) from the University of Pittsburgh-Carnegie Mellon University Medical Scientist Training Program, with an additional certificate in cognitive science from the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. Her PhD research focsed on prefrontal regulatory mechanisms of mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions in chronically stressed community adults. She did post-doctoral work with Dr. David V. Smith at Temple University, examining parcellation of the default mode network.

Dr. Taren moved to Tulsa to complete medical residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Oklahoma, and is board certified in emergency medicine (ABEM) and in lifestyle medicine (ABLM). She has practiced emergency medicine in Oklahoma since 2017 and serves as an adjunct professor of medical education at Oklahoma State University. In January 2025, she joined the Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) in Tulsa, OK as an associate investigator. She is integrating her experience in emergency medicine with her clinical neuroscience expertise to study the neural mechanisms underlying PTSD associated with chronic, repeated occupational trauma exposure among healthcare workers, with the aim of identifying scalable interventions for stress-related disorders in this population.