Dr. Siegel's translational research program is testing a clinical implication of emotional neuroscience, which has shown that fear responses can be activated and acquired without conscious awareness. Very brief exposure (VBE) is the presentation of a continuous series of masked – unrecognizable - phobic images to reduce fear. A series of experiments conducted in my lab have shown that VBE reduces avoidance and experienced fear of a live tarantula by spider-phobic participants without causing them to experience fear consciously. A recent study found that VBE has similar fear-reducing effects on highly socially anxious persons. These findings challenge the prevailing clinical belief that a person must directly confront a feared object or situation in order to reduce fear of it.  

With the support of an R21 Research Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, he is conducting fMRI studies of the neurobiological basis of VBE. His collaborator on this research is Dr. Bradley Peterson, Director of the Institute for the Developing Mind, and Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.