Wednesday, September 4, 2002
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room PSY 154

Posttraumatic Stress and Depression: What's neuroscience got to do
with it?

Presenter:
Dorie Glover, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor in Residence
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Neuropsychiatric Institute
UCLA

Summary:
Little is known about the time course of human HPA-axis dysregulation
associated with PTSD.  Previous studies have shown lower cortisol and
hippocampal volume reductions in individuals with chronic PTSD.  Most
studies have been limited by single assessments often conducted years 
after the precipitating traumatic event.  Thus, it is particularly unclear 
whether hippocampal differences precede the trauma and increase risk for 
the development of PTSD or are a consequence of trauma exposure and
associated chronic stress.  One current project aims to investigate immediate
and long-term HPA-axis activity and its relation to hippocampal size and
morphology in recent-onset trauma. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) 
will be utilized to measure aspects of the hippocampus.  Research subjects
will consist of parents of children recently diagnosed with cancer.  This
population is unique because some will develop posttraumatic stress 
disorder (PTSD) and/or depression and some will not, but all will undergo
chronic stress during the year that they are followed as their child undergoes
active cancer treatment.  As a result, it will be possible to study HPA-axis
activity and hippocampal size and morphology in relation to PTSD or
depression status over time. 

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Wednesday, September 18, 2002
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room PSY 154

Early Social Communication Behaviors in Young Siblings of Children
with Autism

Presenter:    
Wendy Goldberg, PhD
University of California, Irvine

Summary: 
Autism is one of the most prevalent yet least understood developmental
disorders. Recent research points to a genetic component to the etiology 
of autism and calls attention to the developmental functioning of other family
members. The current study examines younger siblings of children with
autism. Observational data are reported on the early social communication
and joint attention behaviors of younger, undiagnosed siblings as compared
to young children with autism and typically developing young children.

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Wednesday, October 16, 2002
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room PSY 154

Mapping the architecture of human kin recognition systems through patterns of moral sentiments, sexual aversions, and altruism.

Presenter:    
Debra Lieberman, PhD
UC Santa Barbara

Summary:
In every known culture, social life is shaped – at least in part – by perceptions of and beliefs about kinship. Explicit categories of kinship may differ from place to place, as well as the lexicon of kin terms, but everywhere people categorize others as either close kin, distant kin or nonkin, and target their behavior accordingly. Some of the most fundamental theories in evolutionary biology claim that any animal species – including humans – in which close kin interact on a regular basis should evolve computational mechanisms that allow them to distinguish genetic relatives from nonrelatives. These mechanisms should be coupled to (at least) two motivational systems with distinct sets of decision rules and emotive reactions: one that promotes altruism toward kin, and another that discourages sex with kin, thereby avoiding the deleterious effects of inbreeding. Such systems have been identified in a number of species, but little is known about these systems in humans. How, during development, do people learn which individuals fall into which kinship category? And what emotions, decision rules, and moral sentiments do these categories entrain to direct kin-specific behaviors?

Since we cannot "see" another person’s genes directly to assess relatedness, the best evolution could do is to design a mind that detects cues that were reliably correlated with genetic relatedness in the ancestral past. The focus of my research is on the nature of the cues – the categories of information – that the mind uses to recognize siblings. Mechanisms estimating relatedness of a particular individual based on the presence of these ancestral cues are hypothesized to output this information to systems guiding motivations to act altruistically and to deter sexual relations. Accordingly, variations in cues assessing kinship should affect the calibration of both motivational systems. This allows the architecture of a sibling recognition system to be mapped by quantitatively matching individual variation in opposition to incest and likelihood to act altruistically to individual variation in developmental parameters that may serve as cues to siblingship (i.e., coresidence and childhood behaviors such as eating meals together). Using this logic, it is possible to provide convergent lines of evidence for how knowledge regarding siblingship is acquired.

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Wednesday, October 30, 2002
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room PSY 154

Relationship Between Ego Identity And Alcohol Use Among College
Students

Presenter:    
Julie Stokes, PhD
CSU Fullerton

Summary:
One-hundred and forty-eight university students completed questionnaires
assessing level of alcohol use in terms of quantities, frequencies 
(Khavari Alcohol Test), and related problems (Core Alcohol and Drug 
Survey (CORE). Ego identity status (EOM-EIS) was also assessed. Diffuse
respondents were significantly more likely to consume alcohol over
their lifetime and within the past year than were foreclosed. Foreclosed 
respondents were significantly more likely to consume alcohol more
often within the past 30 days than were diffuse. Foreclosed respondents also
consumed significantly more alcohol weekly than did diffuse. Results 
clarify contradiction in other studies investigating identity--alcohol 
relation. Suggestions for future research are presented.

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Wednesday, November 6, 2002
3:30 - 4:30 pm
Room PSY 154

The Neural Basis of Perceptual and Cognitive Pleasure

Presenter:    
Irwin Biederman, PhD
Harold W. Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience
Department of Psychology
University of Southern California

Summary:
Our selection of which movie to see or book to read, whether to stay in a 
conversation at a party or freshen our drink, and where to look with our next 
fixation is decidedly non random.  What controls this selection when an
individual is not hungry, avoiding harm, sexually interested, etc., or engaged 
in deliberate search?  And how can this expression of interest be manifested in
real time, at the rate of three visual fixations per second? The surprising
discovery of a gradient of opiate receptors in cortical areas associated with
perception and cognition may provide the key for understanding the spontaneous
selectivity of perception and thought. This system serves to maximize the rate at
which we acquire new but interpretable information.