Kevin A. Pelphrey, the Harris Associate Professor of Psychology at the Yale Child Study Center at Yale University, will give the Wednesday, Oct. 13 presentation, from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the auditorium of the MIND Institute, at 2825 50th St., Sacramento. Pelphrey will discuss "Neural Signatures of Atypical Brain Development in Autism."
Pelphrey's research addresses fundamental questions about the typical and atypical development of brain mechanisms for social cognition in children with and without autism spectrum disorders. His presentation will describe his laboratory studies that characterize those specialized brain systems involved in one aspect of social cognition, social perception in children with and without autism, and in unaffected siblings of children with autism.
On Nov. 10, Mark F. Bear, the Picower Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will discuss "Fulfilling the Promise of Molecular Medicine in a Developmental Brain Disorder." Bear's primary research efforts are directed at understanding how synapses in the cerebral cortex are modified, and the implications of this knowledge for understanding and treating neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, including fragile X, the most common inherited form of human mental retardation.
Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation Chair in Autism Research at the University of Alberta, will discuss "Early Developmental Trajectories in Autism Spectrum Disorders" on Dec. 8. Dr. Zwaigenbaum's research focuses on early behavioral and biological markers, and the course of early development in children with autism and related disorders.
Other Distinguished Lecturer Series speakers will include Stephen P. Hinshaw, of the University of California, Berkeley, who will speak on "Attention Deficits and Impulse Control Problems: Mechanisms, Etiology and Multimodal Intervention" on Jan. 12, and Daniel S. Pine of the National Institute of Mental Health, who will discuss "Research on Pediatric Anxiety: Using Neuroscience to Generate Novel Treatment" on Feb. 9. Additional series presentations are scheduled on March 9, April 13, May 18 and June 8.
This year's series is made possible by the continuing generous support of Sacramento philanthropists Mort and Marcy Friedman. All Distinguished Lecturer Series presentations are free and open to the public, with no reservations required. The MIND Institute Resource Center, a comprehensive source of information and resources relating to neurodevelopmental disorders and related conditions, is open one hour before and 30 minutes after each presentation.
The UC Davis MIND Institute in Sacramento, CA, was founded in 1998 as a unique interdisciplinary research center where parents, community leaders, researchers, clinicians and volunteers work together toward a common goal: researching causes, treatments and eventual preventions and cures for neurodevelopmental disorders. The institute has major research efforts in autism, Tourette syndrome, fragile X syndrome, chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). More information about the institute and its Distinguished Lecturer Series, including previous presentations in this series, is available on the Web at http://mindinstitute.ucdavis.edu/.