Flux Blog

#Flux2024 Interdisciplinary Symposium Discusses How Stressful Environments Impact Brain Development

Sep 12, 2024 | Flux Conference, For society members

We can’t wait for #Flux2024 in Baltimore! To help share our excitement, we have been fortunate to interview some of the chairs of the upcoming symposia. Below, Dr. Jamie Hanson gives us some early insight into what to expect from his chaired symposium on environmental stressors and brain development. Give it a read and let us know what else you’re excited for at #Flux2024!

Symposium I: How Unpredictable and Stressful Environments Impact Brain Development

Chair & Moderator: Jamie Hanson, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh

Speakers:

  1.  Tallie Baram, MD, PhD: “Dynamic Patterns of Parental Signals Shape Brain Circuit Maturation: Enduring Effects of Unpredictable Parental and Environmental Signals in children, and Mechanistic Insights from Experimental Animals”
  2.  Felicia Hardi, PhD: “Household Instability in Childhood and Its Long-Term Links to Brain Development and Mental Health”
  3.  Erica Glasper, PhD: “The early-life stress of paternal deprivation, in a biparental rodent, contributes to sex-specific social behavior deficits and neuroimmune suppression”
  4.  Fila Takio: “The Effects of Unpredictability of Maternal Sensory Signals on Child's Cognitive Self-Regulation: Insights from the Finnbrain Birth Cohort Study”

Interviewee: Dr. Jamie Hanson, Ph.D.

Interviewer: Matt Mattoni, M.A.

What is your symposium about?

At the broadest level, this symposium focuses on early adversity and environmental experiences. Many folks doing this type of research have started to focus on specific "dimensions" (or kinds) of experiences; what makes this session interesting and unique is that the presenters here are all focused on a new dimension or framing of experience, namely unpredictability. Past studies have found things like depriving or threatening experiences can shape development; here, instead, these projects focus on how inconsistent or unpredictable experiences may alter the brain and behavior. This unpredictability may take very different forms from unpredictable parental or sensory signals, to larger things like household instability. Notably, there will be data from both human and non-human animal studies, and connections to lots of outcomes including self-regulation, mental health, social competence, and immune functioning. I won't give away all the results, but this work really helps us understand how early life experiences can program neurodevelopment in ways that influence childhood cognitive, emotional, social and physical health outcomes. There's some very interesting data on sensitive periods and some suggestive strategies for supporting healthy development following early life stress.

Who are the speakers? What diverse viewpoints do they bring?

The speakers are Tallie Baram, Erica Glasper, Fiia Takio, and Felicia Hardi. We’re excited to have a real span of career stages, from a Distinguished Professor Dr. Baram to a scholar who just finished their PhD, Dr. Hardi. Some researchers are doing work in non-human animals, and some work with humans internationally; also a great deal of diversity in methodology and training. I think it nicely demonstrates the interdisciplinary nature of Flux

How did this symposium come about?

The session came about through lots of discussion at the programming committee. Dr. Margaret Sheridan headed that committee, and Dr. Baram and myself, also on that committee, have been quite interested in categories and kinds of early experiences. Given all the unpredictability of COVID and the last few years, it felt like a very important and timely topic.

What was your goal in organizing this symposium?

We had a number of goals here, but most centrally, it was to showcase high quality research on a critical topic where neurodevelopment was really centralized. I believe we achieved those goals by featuring both human longitudinal cohort studies and animal models from a great group of scholars. There's a well-roundedness to the session, as the audience can start to see the continuities (and discontinuities) of results across methodologies, populations and specific variables of interest.

What else are you looking forward to at Flux, and/or around Baltimore?

Cultural Night in Baltimore, where Bea may be crowd surfing! 

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