The lecture will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 10, from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the MIND Institute auditorium at 2825 50th St., Sacramento. It is free and open to the public and no reservations are required.
Bear is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the Picower Professor of Neuroscience in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He researches how synapses in the cerebral cortex are modified in order to develop new treatments for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.
Bear initiated the metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5 (mGluR5) theory of intellectual disability in fragile X, which has led to potential targeted treatments for fragile X syndrome and may be helpful for individuals with other disorders, like autism spectrum disorder. One important role of the brain protein that is missing in fragile X syndrome is to offset the activity of mGluR5. Drugs that have a similar activity can substitute for this missing protein and check the activity of mGluR5.
Future Distinguished Lecturer Series speakers will include:
- Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation Chair in Autism Research at the University of Alberta, Canada, who will discuss "Early Developmental Trajectories in Autism Spectrum Disorders" Dec. 8
- Stephen P. Hinshaw of UC Berkeley, who will speak on "Attention Deficits and Impulse Control Problems: Mechanisms, Etiology and Multimodal Intervention" Jan. 12
- Daniel S. Pine of the National Institute of Mental Health, who will discuss "Research on Pediatric Anxiety: Using Neuroscience to Generate Novel Treatment" Feb. 9.
Additional series presentations are scheduled on March 9, April 13, May 18 and June 8.
The Distinguished Lecturer Series is made possible by the continuing generous support of Sacramento philanthropists Mort and Marcy Friedman. The MIND Institute Resource Center, a comprehensive source of information and resources relating to neurodevelopmental disorders and associated conditions that is open to the public daily from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., will remain open for an additional 30 minutes during these presentations.
The UC Davis MIND Institute in Sacramento 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.
More information about the institute and the lectures, including previous presentations, is available on the Web at http://mindinstitute.ucdavis.edu/.