For many of us, threat-related behaviors are just one aspect of what we do: our desire to avoid, neutralize, or seek reassurance about threatening situations coexists with our many other goals and values. But for those with anxiety disorders, OCD, and related conditions, life might begin to revolve around these threat-related behaviors. Other important areas of life -- identity, goals, and deeper values -- are put on hold as fear and anxiety take control.
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While great strides have been made in understanding and treating mental health conditions, these patterns of costly, unnecessary threat-related behavior are not yet fully understood. With this in mind, we bring a decision-science approach to the study of anxiety, applying behavioral and neuroimaging methods to probe the following questions:
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1. How do we make decisions when the motivation to respond to threats is at odds with other motivations - like values, goals, and rewards?
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2. What brain processes contribute to the patterns of costly, unnecessary threat-related behavior seen in clinical anxiety?
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3. What are common and distinct factors across various threat-related behaviors, including avoidance, compulsions, information seeking, substance use, and disordered eating?
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Through this work, we hope to contribute to a comprehensive account of threat-related decision-making that will ultimately improve treatments for anxiety disorders, OCD, and other conditions.
Selected Presentations
When Safety Becomes Costly: Behavioral Patterns of Repetitive Threat-Neutralization
LIBR Research Day, July 2025
Neural Correlates of Repetitive Threat-Neutralization: An Analogue for Compulsions in OCD
Society of Biological Psychiatry, May 2025
Tapping into Threat Response: Assessing Test-Retest Reliability of the Tap-To-Safety Task
LIBR Research Day, July 2025
Generalization of Repetitive Threat-Neutralization Behavior: Associations with Anxiety and Compulsivity
Anxiety and Depression Association of America, April 2025
Selected Publications
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Tomas, C. W., Fitzgerald, J. M., Baird, C. L., Haswell, C. C., Abdallah, C. G., Angstadt, M., Baker, J. T., Berg, H.,… Morey, R. (2025). Data-Driven Approach to Dynamic Resting State Functional Connectivity in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: An ENIGMA-PGC PTSD Study. Human Brain Mapping, 46(11), e70116. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.70116
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See, C. R. Z., Si, S., Baird, C. L., Haswell, C. C., Hussain, A., Olff, M., Veltman, D. J., Frijling, J., Zuiden, M. van, Koch, S. B. J., Nawijn, L., Wang, L., Zhu, Y., Li, G., Neria, Y., Zhu, X., Suarez-Jimenez, B., Zilcha-Mano, S., Lazarov, A., … Berg, H., … Kempton, M. (2025). A whole-brain voxel-based analysis of structural abnormalities in PTSD: An ENIGMA-PGC study. European Psychiatry, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.10062
Berg, H., McDermott, T. J., Kuplicki, R., Yeh, H.-W., Thompson, W. K., Smith, R., Akeman, E., Kirlic, N., Clausen, A., Cannon, M., White, E., Martell, C. R., Wolitzky-Taylor, K. B., Craske, M. G., Abelson, J. L., Paulus, M. P., & Aupperle, R. L. (2025). Prediction of generalized anxiety disorder treatment outcomes with neurobehavioral responses to approach-avoidance conflict: A randomized clinical trial. Translational Psychiatry, 15(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-025-03460-x
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Berg, H.*, Eun, Y-J.*, Yu, X., McDermott, T.J., Akeman, E., Kuplicki, R., Yeh., H-W., Thompson, W., Martell, C.R., Wolitzky-Taylor, K.B., Craske, M.G., Paulus, M.P., Aupperle, R.L. (2025). Neural activity to reward and loss predicting treatment outcomes for adults with generalized anxiety disorder: A randomized clinical trial. Journal of Mood and Anxiety Disorders. 9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjmad.2025.100107
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Berg, H., Webler, R.D., Klein, S., Kushner, M.G. (2024). Extinction and beyond: An expanded framework for exposure and response prevention for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Frontiers in Psychology – Psychology for Clinical Settings, 15, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1331155
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Aupperle, R.L., Kuplicki, R., Tsuchiyagaito, A., Akeman, E., Sturycz-Taylor, C.A., DeVille, D., Lasswell, T., Misaki, M., Berg, H., McDermott, T.J., Touthang, J., Ballard, E.D., Cha, S., Schacter, D.L., and Paulus, M.P. (2024). Ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation and neurofeedback modulation during episodic future thinking for individuals with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 76, p.104522.
Aupperle, R.L., & Berg, H. (2024). Arriving at One Goal Is the Starting Point to Another: Identification of Prognostic Biomarkers for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Starts a Long Journey Toward Translation. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 9(1), 3–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.11.006
Berg, H., Akeman, E., McDermott, T. J., Cosgrove, K. T., Kirlic, N., Clausen, A., Cannon, M., Yeh, H.-W., White, E., Thompson, W. K., Choquette, E. M., Sturycz-Taylor, C. A., Cochran, G., Ramirez, S., Martell, C. R., Wolitzky-Taylor, K. B., Craske, M. G., Abelson, J. L., Paulus, M. P., & Aupperle, R. L. (2023). A randomized clinical trial of behavioral activation and exposure-based therapy for adults with generalized anxiety disorder. Journal of Mood and Anxiety Disorders, 1, 100004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjmad.2023.100004
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Berg, H., Hunt, C., Cooper, S. E., Olatunji, B. O., & Lissek, S. (2021). Generalization of conditioned disgust and the attendant maladaptive avoidance: Validation of a novel paradigm and effects of trait disgust-proneness. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 103966. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2021.103966
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Berg, H., Ma., Y., Rueter, A., Kaczkurkin, A., Burton, P. C., DeYoung., C. G., MacDonald, A. W., Sponheim, S., & Lissek, S. (2020). Salience and central executive networks track overgeneralization of conditioned fear in post-traumatic stress disorder. Psychological Medicine, 1-10. PDF
Jessup, S. C., Knowles, K. A., Berg, H., & Olatunji, B. O. (2019). Anger rumination is not uniquely characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Personality and Individual Differences, 140, 10–14. PDF
Olatunji, B. O., Berg, H., Cox, R. C., & Billingsley, A. (2017). The effects of cognitive reappraisal on conditioned disgust in contamination-based OCD: an analogue study. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 51C, 86-93. PDF
Berg, H., Ballard, E. D., Luckenbaugh, D. A., Nugent, A. C., Ionescu, D. F., & Zarate, C. A., Jr. (2016). Recognition of emotional facial expressions in anxious and nonanxious depression. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 70, 1-8. PDF
Olatunji, B. O., Berg, H., & Zhao, Z. (2015). Emotional regulation of fear and disgust: Differential effects of reappraisal and suppression. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 1-8. PDF
† denotes mentored student author
* denotes shared first authorship
