Center For Mind, Brain, And Culture

Relationships between genes and social behavior have historically been viewed as a one-way street, with genes in control. Recent analyses have challenged this view by discovering broad alterations in the expression of human genes as a function of differing socio-environmental conditions. My talk summarizes the developing field of social genomics, and its efforts to identify the types of genes subject to social regulation, the biological signaling pathways mediating those effects, and the genetic polymorphisms that moderate socio-environmental influences on human gene expression. This approach provides a concrete molecular perspective on how external social conditions interact with our genes to shape the functional characteristics of our bodies, and alter our future biological and behavioral responses based on our personal transcriptional histories. (March 25, 2014)

Recent advances in network science have greatly increased our understanding of the structure and function of many networked systems, ranging from transportation networks, to social networks, the internet, ecosystems, and biochemical and gene transcription pathways. Network approaches are also increasingly applied to the brain, at several levels of scale from cells to entire nervous systems. Early studies in this emerging field of brain connectomics have focused on mapping brain network topology and identifying some of its characteristic features, including small world attributes, modularity and hubs. More recently, the emphasis has shifted towards linking brain network topology to brain dynamics, the patterns of functional interactions that emerge from spontaneous and evoked neuronal activity. I will give an overview of recent work characterizing the structure of complex brain networks, with particular emphasis on studies demonstrating how the network topology of the connectome constrains and shapes its capac

Critiquing a number of stubborn clichés about autism and embracing the concept of neurodiversity, Savarese presents the work of Tito Mukhopadhyay, a man whom the medical community would describe as “severely autistic” and whom he has been mentoring for the past five years. (Feb. 20, 2014) The author of Reasonable People, which Newsweek called “a real life love story and an urgent manifesto for the rights of people with neurological disabilities” and the co-editor of “Autism and the Concept of Neurodiversity,” a special issue of Disability Studies Quarterly, Ralph James Savarese can be seen in the award-winning documentaryLoving Lampposts: Living Autistic and in a forthcoming documentary about his son, DJ, Oberlin College’s first nonspeaking student with autism. He spent the academic year 2012/2013 as a neurohumanities fellow at Duke University’s Institute for Brain Sciences.

This collaborative discussion turns attention to gender in the academy (February 21, 2014). How are academic work and the academic workplace gendered? We approach these broad questions not simply from the perspective of relative numbers, promotion records, pay, etc. of women/men in the ranks of students, staff, faculty and administrators, but by exploring the subtle dimensions and performances of gender that shape the very fabric of academic work and workplace practices.

Emory Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture Lecture (January 31, 2014). The represented face is so ubiquitous and important to narrative film that it deserves separate consideration. In this talk I define and defend what I call a “cognitive cultural” approach to film theory and illustrate its usefulness with an analysis of some key functions of facial representation in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).  I begin by arguing that biology and psychology have much to offer film studies, using as an example Steven J. Gould’s “A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse.” I go on to summarize the most important research into the uses of the face in narrative film. My analysis of The Silence of the Lambs, finally, is meant to show that cognitive cultural studies of film, by exploring the interface between mind, film, and culture, not only helps us understand the film medium generally, but but also particular films in their broad social and historical context.

In 2012, an interdisciplinary team of scientists at the University of Oxford reported that, based on their clinical experiment, the beta-blocker drug, Propranolol, could reduce implicit racial bias among its users. Whites were given a single oral dose of the drug, then asked to complete the Implicit Association Test, a reliable measure of racial prejudice. Relative to the placebo, those who were given Propranolol experienced no indicators of implicit racial bias. Though the researchers warned of the danger in biological research being used to make a “more moral society,” they also asserted “such research raises the tantalizing possibility that our unconscious racial attitudes could be modulated using drugs.” Shortly after the experiment, an article in Time Magazine, citing the study, asked the question that frames our project: Is racism becoming a mental illness? My new book project traces the genealogies of race and racism as psychopathological categories from mid-19th century Europe and the United States up

Panel discussion follows film screening of "Shadows and Illuminations" (Oct. 22, 2013).

Director and anthropologist Dr. Robert Lemelson screens and discusses his films on culture, psychology, mental illness, and personal experience, which are based on years of fieldwork conducted in Indonesia since 1997 (October 22-23, 2013).

Panel discussion follows film screenings of "Ritual Burdens" and "Kites and Monsters" (Oct. 22, 2013).

Film and Lecture Series | Jim Hoesterey and Bradd Shore | Afflictions: Culture and Mental Illness in Indonesia – PANEL DISCUSSION on Religion and Faith

CMBC Lecture held September 27, 2013
. Why do we unite such different kinds of objects as music, literature and painting together under the rubric of art? The tradition of the sister arts since Plato has been built on such connections, but perhaps it ought to seem strange that we associate objects and events that appeal to us so differently, through different senses and in different forms. Understanding aesthetics depends on our being able to comprehend why we do so, why a painting by Van Gogh, a poem by Keats, and a fugue by Bach are moving in similar ways. As I explore what makes this is possible (the neuroscience of emotion and reward, the functioning of imagery, and the operations of the default mode network, I arrive at an answer to my second question, which is what kind of knowledge do aesthetic pleasures bring? Ultimately, I argue that aesthetics offers a model for understanding how the brain responds to unpredictable rewards, and how novelty helps drive our mental economies.

Laura Otis and Philippe Rochat discussed unsavory human emotions from literary, physiological, and evolutionary perspectives. Otis will give an overview of her 2012 CMBC course, Cognitive Science and Fiction, and its role in inspiring a new research project on metaphors used to represent self-pity, anger, hate, and refusal to forgive. In descriptions of these emotions, religious, socio-political, and gender assumptions merge, but representations of these emotions also suggest the ways that minds and bodies interact to produce the feelings people experience. Otis offers some preliminary observations about metaphors for these emotions in classical literary and religious texts and in some recent films. Rochat discusses his research on fairness, jealousy, envy, fear of losing, and other human emotions surrounding the concept of possession. He considers, based on his and other developmental observations, the evolutionary roots of these emotions and whether they, along with related feelings such as shame and guilt,

Talk sponsored by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture on March 4, 2013.

We will explore how people vary in their individual experiences of mental imagery and how this might relate to their creative abilities, with particular reference to writing. Then we will consider neural processes that underlie imagery and its variable expression across individuals.

Psychiatric science presumes that hallucinations are an uninteresting byproduct of psychosis. This comparison of the voices heard by people with schizophrenia suggests that there are significant cultural variations between the voice-hearing experiences, and that these differences may have implications for treatment. The paper argues that the differences arise because of differences in local theories of mind.

What were the factors that contributed to the outcome of the 2012 Presidential Election?  How did campaign tactics, current events, the media, and the changing face of the electorate influence voter turnout and voting patterns? Insights will be provided from a political science perspective on election forecasting and polling, and from a psychology perspective on campaign messaging and the roles of emotion and cognition in voters’ decision making.

Talk sponsored by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture on February 7, 2013.

CMBC Talk, Fall Semester, 2012

CMBC Talk, Fall Semester, 2012

Talk from "Fairness Conference: An Interdisciplinary Reflection on the Meanings of Fairness." Co-sponsored by the Emory Office of the Provost, the Emory Cognition Project, the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, and the Emory Center for Ethics, October 18-19, 2012.