Dec. 2: Daniel Pine, "Creating a Developmental Clinical Neuroscience: Lessons from Pediatric Anxiety"

Creating a Developmental Clinical Neuroscience: Lessons from Pediatric Anxiety

Daniel S. Pine, MD
Chief, Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience National Institute of Mental Health

Daniel Pine is one of the world’s leading experts on emotional disorders in youth. This expertise is reflected in more than 300 peer-reviewed papers—including major contributions to understanding the epidemiology, diagnosis, biology, and treatment of anxiety and mood disorders in children and adolescents. His lab is engaged in a series of pioneering studies addressing questions about the neural systems involved in fear and threat processes in ways that are relevant to the risk, development, and treatment of anxiety disorders. Among his many honors he was recently elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine in the National Academy of Sciences. In his talk at IHD (noon on December 2) Pine will address a series of issues about the emerging field of developmental clinical neuroscience, using his work on pediatric anxiety disorders as an example.

Monday, December 2, 12:00-1:30pm in 3105 Tolman Hall

November 25: Ndola Prata, "Adolescent reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa: collaborative strategies to improve health outcomes"

Please join us Monday November 25th, 12:00-1:30pm in 3105 Tolman Hall for a special presentation by Ndola Prata providing a global perspective on high-impact issues in adolescence. This talk is part of our emerging UC Center for the Developing Adolescent (within IHD).
The UC Center on the Developing Adolescent is an interdisciplinary research and policy center founded on the belief that adolescence represents a maturational period of great vulnerabilities and opportunities—with enormous long-term impact on health, education, well-being, and economic success. The mission of our Center is twofold. First, to use integrative, interdisciplinary approaches to advance understanding of the unique opportunities for early intervention, prevention, and health promotion during this crucial period of adolescent brain development; and second, to pursue innovative approaches to help translate this rapidly emerging knowledge into policies that improve the lives of youth (locally and globally).

This presentation by Dr. Prata will describe a global perspective focusing on opportunities (and vulnerabilities) for adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa (see details below).

Adolescent reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa: collaborative strategies to improve health outcomes

Ndola Prata, MD, MSc: is the Director of the Bixby Center for Population, Health & Sustainability. A physician and medical demographer originally from Angola, Dr Prata is an Associate Professor in Residence in Maternal and Child Health and holds the Fred H. Bixby Endowed Chair in Population and Family Planning in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

It is estimated that more than a third of the total population in sub-Saharan Africa is aged 10-24. Ten countries with the youngest population in the world are found in SSA—one of these is Ethiopia. Adolescents and young adults in the region are the most vulnerable groups and present the poorest reproductive health indicators. The Bixby Center at UCB has been working collaboratively in the region addressing some of the key challenges and opportunities in adolescent reproductive health policies and programs. Examples of collaborative strategies in Nigeria, Angola and Ethiopia highlight the Centers’ involvement in designing interventions for adolescents aimed at improving individual reproductive health outcomes tied to structural and social factors, as well as providing evidence for policy change.

Monday, Nov. 18: Mahesh Srinivasan, "The role of children's cognitive biases in the structure of the lexicon: Cross-linguistic evidence from polysemy"

Please join us for a presentation by Professor Mahesh Srinivasan, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.

The role of children's cognitive biases in the structure of the lexicon: Cross-linguistic evidence from polysemy

Abstract: Many words in English shift in meaning according to systematic patterns. For example, words can label animals and their meat (e.g., chicken, lamb, and fish), or artists and their produced works (e.g., Picasso, Tolstoy, Mozart). These patterns are also generative, in the sense that they can be extended to new words: e.g., a name for a new animal can label its meat, as in “The dax was tasty.” In this talk, I’ll explore what factors might account for the structure of polysemy. Drawing on findings from children’s acquisition of polysemous words, and especially from a new cross-linguistic survey of polysemy, I will suggest that different languages may develop broadly similar patterns of polysemy, because these patterns have been adapted over time to be easily learnable for children, given their cognitive biases. This possible fit between the structure of polysemy and children’s conceptual structure suggests that polysemy may act to speed the process of building a lexicon: by picking up on patterns, children may spontaneously infer new meanings for words.

Monday, November 18, 12:00-1:30pm in 3105 Tolman Hall

Monday, Nov. 4: L.A. Paul, "What you can't expect when you're expecting"

Please join us for a presentation by Professor Laurie Paul, Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

What you can't expect when you're expecting

Abstract: It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to actually have a child. I argue that this natural approach fails. If you choose to become a parent, and your choice is based on projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. If you choose to remain childless, and your choice is based upon projections about what you think it would be like for you to have a child, your choice is not rational. This suggests we should reject our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision, and raises general questions about how to rationally approach important life choices.

Monday, November 4, 12:00-1:30pm in 3105 Tolman Hall

Monday, Oct. 28: Jenny Saffran, Sounds and meanings working together: Word learning as a collaborative effort

Professor Jenny Saffran, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison will present:

Sounds and meanings working together: Word learning as a collaborative effort

When we think about word learning, we tend to focus on the fundamental act of mapping a word onto the world. However, lexical learning does not occur in a vacuum. At the outset of word learning, infants already have a great deal of experience with the sound patterns that make up their native language, and the objects that clutter their proximal environment. In this talk, I will consider recent data suggesting that knowledge of sounds and knowledge of referents go hand in hand during the language learning process.

Monday, October 28, 12:00-1:30pm in 3105 Tolman Hall

Oct. 21: Dr. Alexandra Minnis, Social environment influences on adolescent reproductive health: Epidemiologic evidence from San Francisco's Mission District and intervention directions

Social environment influences on adolescent reproductive health: Epidemiologic evidence from San Francisco's Mission District and intervention directions.

Dr. Alexandra Minnis, Senior Research Epidemiologist, RTI International and Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health (UCB), will present her research highlighting the role of gang affiliation and migration in reproductive health outcomes in a predominantly Latino community. She will also discuss novel intervention directions and present feasibility results from a randomized study of Yo Puedo, a social networks-based intervention that combines conditional cash transfers and life skills to promote sexual health.

Please join us on Monday, October 21, 12:00-1:30pm in 3105 Tolman Hall.

Institute of Human Development & Change, Plasticity and Development Seminar, Fall 2013

9/16 Linda Wilbrecht
Department of Psychology, UC Berkeley

9/23 Emily Ozer
School of Public Health, UC Berkeley

10/21 Alexandra Minnis
Senior Research Epidemiologist, Women's Global Health Imperative, RTI International

10/28 Jenny Saffran
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

11/4 Laurie Paul
Philosophy Department, UNC Chapel Hill

11/18 Mahesh Srinivasan
Department of Psychology, UC Berkeley

11/25 Ndola Prata
Associate Professor in Residence, SPH

12/2 Danny Pine
Chief of Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience, National Institute of Mental Health

All talks will be held in 3105 Tolman Hall, 12:00-1:30pm