Laurence Kirmayer, MD, FRCPC, FCAHS, FRSC

Time: Monday, June 17, 9:00–10:30 am

Title: Introduction to Social and Cultural Neuroscience

Abstract: Social and cultural neuroscience has provided new insights into the mechanisms and meanings of human cognition and adaptation. This introduction will outline the workshop and consider the conceptual and methodological challenges of building bridges between the social sciences and neurosciences.  Topics will include: the relevance of social science for neuroscience; implications of 4-E cognitive science for social and cultural neuroscience; ecosocial approaches to studying the brain in health and illness; and strategies for integrating ethnographic methods and neuroscience in global mental health.

Biographical Note: Laurence J. Kirmayer, MD, FRCPC, FCAHS, FRSC is James McGill Professor and Director, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University and Director of the McGill Global Mental Health Program. He is Editor-in-Chief of Transcultural Psychiatry, and Director of the Culture & Mental Health Research Unit at the Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, where he conducts research on culturally responsive mental health services, the mental health of Indigenous peoples, and the anthropology of psychiatry. He founded and directs the annual Summer Program and Advanced Study Institute in Cultural Psychiatry at McGill. He co-edited the volumes, Understanding Trauma: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives (Cambridge University Press), Healing Traditions: The Mental Health of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada (University of British Columbia Press), Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care (Springer), DSM-5 Handbook for the Cultural Formulation Interview (APPI), and Re-Visioning Psychiatry: Cultural Phenomenology, Critical Neuroscience and Global Mental Health (Cambridge). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Social Sciences).

Readings (* = required)

Choudhury, S., & Kirmayer, L. J. (2009). Cultural neuroscience and psychopathology: Prospects for cultural psychiatry. Progress in Brain Research, 178, 263-283.

Kirmayer, L. J. (2012). The future of critical neuroscience. In: S. Choudhury & J. Slaby (Eds.) Critical Neuroscience. A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience (pp. 367-383) Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Kirmayer, L. J., & Crafa, D. (2014). What kind of science for psychiatry?. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 435.

*Seligman, R., Choudhury, S., & Kirmayer, L. J. (2015). Locating culture in the brain and in the world: from social categories to the ecology of mind. In: Chiao, J. Y., Li, S. C., & Seligman, R. (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience (pp. 3-20). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Maria Gendron, PhD (presenter); Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD (co-author)

Time: Tuesday, June 18, 9:00–10:30 am, 11:00 am–12:30 pm

Title: Affective Neuroscience

Abstract: Affective phenomena have traditionally been considered in a separate sphere from cognitive phenomena such as memory, perception, and decision making. This legacy of partitioning the brain into “emotional” circuits that are separate from “cognitive” regions is being actively dismantled with emerging neuroscience research on the network structure and function of the brain. This research has led to several key insights. First, affective phenomena are pervasive due to the core biological task of predictively regulating the body (allostasis) and representing the sensory consequences of that bodily regulation (interoception). Emerging research suggests that the experience of affective qualities (pleasure, displeasure) is a low-dimensional representation of these processes in consciousness. Second, emotional experiences and perceptions also involve a set of regions that implement conceptual processing, which serve to bring online past experience to guide actions and give sensations meaning. This finding suggests that affective neuroscience must be fused with cognitive neuroscience to make progress on understanding the nature of affect and emotion. A third, and final insight, is that diversity in emotional phenomena, across individuals and societies, may be unpacked by considering how the conceptual system guides the implementation of allostasis in a manner that is tuned to the demands and opportunities of an individual’s ecological, social and developmental niche. As a consequence, the entry point for measurement of affective and emotional phenomena in neuroscience research will be enhanced by considering conceptual frameworks for affect and emotion within a given (cultural) context.

Biographical Notes:  

Maria Gendron, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Dr. Gendron is a Social Psychologist by training. She completed her doctorate at Boston College in 2013 with Lisa Feldman Barrett, where she conducted research on emotion perception in laboratory studies, patients with neurodegenerative disorders, and in small-scale societies. Her research focused on the role of conceptual knowledge, anchored in language, in the perceptual representation of and inferences about emotional cues (facial movements, vocalizations). During her post-doctoral work, supported by a NIMH fellowship, Dr. Gendron expanded her training to affective neuroscience and its integration with cultural psychology. Ongoing work aims to integrate affective neuroscience approaches with the study of individual and cultural diversity in emotional phenomena, including through fieldwork in a small-scale societal contexts and in laboratory research in industrialized, globalized societies.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, is a University Distinguished Professor of psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in psychiatry and radiology. Dr. Barrett’s research focuses on the nature of emotion from the perspectives of both psychology and neuroscience, and takes inspiration from anthropology, philosophy, and linguistics. Her lab takes an interdisciplinary approach, and incorporates methods from social, clinical, and personality psychology, psychophysiology, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, and visual cognition. Current projects focus on understanding the psychological construction of emotion (i.e., how basic affective and conceptual ingredients provide the recipes for emotional experiences), age- and disease-related changes in affective circuitry within the human brain, how language and context influence emotion perception, how affect influences vision, and sex differences in emotion. Dr. Barrett received a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award for her research on emotion in the brain, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society of Canada and has been named president-elect for the Association of Psychological Science.

Readings (* = required)

Adolphs, R. (2017). How should neuroscience study emotions? By distinguishing emotion states, concepts, and experiences. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 12(1), 24-31.

Atzil, S., Gao, W., Fradkin, I., & Barrett, L. F. (in press). Growing a social brain. Nature Human Behavior. [draft forthcoming, upon availability]

* Barrett, L. F. (2017). The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(11), 1833.

*Barrett, L. F. & Satpute, A. B. (2017). Historical pitfalls and new directions in the neuroscience of emotion. Neuroscience Letters. DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2017.07.045

Brooks, J.A., Shablack, H., Gendron, M., Satpute, A.B., Parrish, M.J., & Lindquist, K.A. (2017). The role of language in the experience and perception of emotion: A neuroimaging meta-analysis. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 169-183.Critchley, H. D., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2017). Interoception and emotion. Current opinion in psychology, 17, 7-14.

Kleckner, I. R., Zhang, J., Touroutoglou, A., Chanes, L., Xia, Chengie, Simmons, W. K., Quigley, K.S., Dickerson, B. C., & Barrett, L. F. (2017). Evidence for a large-scale brain system supporting allostasis and interoception in humans. Nature Human Behavior, 1,0069.

Ledoux, J. E., & Brown, R. (2017). A higher-order theory of emotional consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(10), E2016-E2025.

Somerville, L. H. (2016). Emotional development in adolescence. In Handbook of Emotion, 4th Edition (Barrett, Lewis, & Haviland-Jones, Eds.).

Jennifer Bartz, PhD

Time: Wednesday, June 19, 9:00–10:30 am

Title: Oxytocin & the Neuroscience of Affiliation

Abstract: The field of social neuroscience has led to important insights about the biological basis of several social psychological processes (e.g., cooperation, empathy, prejudice). To date, work has largely employed imaging techniques to identify the brain regions/circuits involved in social cognition and behavior. Another important but less studied question concerns the neurochemical bases of social psychological processes. Neuromodulators (e.g., serotonin, oxytocin) alter nerve impulse transmission and allow for neuronal communication; because they diffuse through large areas of the brain, neuromodulators can impact the activity of diverse populations of neurons and have fairly widespread effects on the brain’s inherent functioning. Ultimately, these signaling molecules are thought to set in motion processes that facilitate the organism’s ability to respond adaptively to the demands of the current context.

In this presentation, I will focus on the role of the hormone and neuromodulator oxytocin, which, over the last 15 years, has emerged as a key variable in the regulation of human social cognition and behavior. Although popularly dubbed the “love hormone” empirical work reveals that the social effects of oxytocin are often nuanced—sometimes facilitating prosocial cognition and behavior, but at other times, or for other individuals, producing null and even “anti-social” effects. In fact, such variability may offer clues about the more basic mechanisms by which oxytocin modulates human sociality. One hypothesis that will be discussed is that oxytocin may alter specific motivational and/or perceptual states that make social cues more salient. Appreciating oxytocin’s nuanced social effects is important for i) advancing our understanding of the neuroscience and psychology of affiliation, and ii) researchers considering oxytocin as a therapeutic for disorders marked by impaired social functioning.

Biographical Note: Professor Bartz is an international leader in the study of the biological bases of prosocial behaviour (e.g., cooperation, trust, empathy). Her research on the effects of the neurohormone oxytocin revealed its powerful role in promoting co-operation, empathy and affiliation, but also – for certain individuals in certain situations – contributing to insecure attachment, personality disorders, and even domestic violence.  Her award-winning work advances a nuanced understanding of the profound links between brain and social behaviour. She has published her research in such top-tier journals as PNAS, Psychological Science and Current Biology, as well as such top tier specialty journals as Biological Psychiatry, International Journal of Psychoneuroendocrinology and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Readings (* = required)

*Bartz, J. A., Zaki, J., Bolger, N., & Ochsner, K. N. (2011). Social effects of oxytocin in humans: context and person matter. Trends Cogn Sci, 15(7), 301-309. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2011.05.002

Carter, C. S. (1998). Neuroendocrine perspectives on social attachment and love. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 23(8), 779-818, AND Insel, T. R., & Young, L. J. (2001). The neurobiology of attachment. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2(2), 129-136. Two historical classics that raised attention about the role of oxytocin in attachment.

Carter, C. S. (2014). Oxytocin pathways and the evolution of human behavior.  Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 17-39. A thorough, far-reaching theoretical analysis of oxytocin and human behavior.

Heinrichs, M., von Dawans, B., & Domes, G. (2009). Oxytocin, vasopressin, and human social behavior. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 30(4), 548-557. A clearly written, relatively comprehensive review for readers who wish to expand their knowledge on oxytocin and affiliation in humans.

*Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435(7042), 673-676. doi: 10.1038/nature03701

Landgraf, R., & Neumann, I. D. (2004). Vasopressin and oxytocin release within the brain: a dynamic concept of multiple and variable modes of neuropeptide communication. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 25(3-4), 150-176. A comprehensive review for readers who wish to expand their knowledge on oxytocin release within the brain.

Marlin, B. J., Mitre, M., D’Amour J, A., Chao, M. V., & Froemke, R. C. (2015). Oxytocin enables maternal behaviour by balancing cortical inhibition. Nature, 520(7548), 499-504. doi: 10.1038/nature14402. An elegant illustration of the social salience hypothesis in non-human animals.

*Ross, H. E., & Young, L. J. (2009). Oxytocin and the neural mechanisms regulating social cognition and affiliative behavior. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 30(4), 534-547. A clearly written and relatively comprehensive review for readers who wish to expand their knowledge on oxytocin and affiliation in non-human animals.

Jorge Armony, PhD

Time: Wednesday, June 19, 11:00–12:30 pm

Title: The Influence of Context on Emotional Processing

Abstract: The ability to detect and decode others’ emotional expressions is essential for successful social interactions and, in certain cases, even for survival. Processing of these stimuli can often be achieved in an automatic fashion, even under suboptimal conditions (e.g., in the presence of noise or outside the focus of attention). Nonetheless, the evaluation of emotional stimuli can be strongly modulated by contextual factors. Here, I will present recent findings from our group and others exploring how context can influence the behavioral and neural processing of visual and acoustic emotional expressions, especially when they are ambiguous. Specifically, I will focus on how processing of these stimuli is affected by the presence of other emotional information, the relevance (actual or perceived) of the stimulus, as well as the relation between the emitter and receiver.

Biographical Note: Much of our current understanding of stress-related disorders – including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), phobias, panic attack, and generalized anxiety – comes from studying how the brain processes fear.

Jorge Armony, PhD conducts research on how the brain detects stimuli in the environment that may signal threat or danger, and how this mechanism interacts with other processes, such as consciousness, attention, and memory.

In his quest for answers, Jorge Armony uses several state-of-the-art research techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), behavioral and physiological measures (i.e. skin conductance and heart rate), as well as computational modeling.

Readings (* = required)

*Armony, J. L. (2013). Current Emotion Research in Behavioral Neuroscience: The Role(s) of the Amygdala. Emotion Review, 5(1), 104–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073912457208

Carolyn Parkinson, PhD

Time: Wednesday, June 19, 2:00–3:30 pm, 3:30–5:00 pm

Title: To Be Announced / [ Social Networks ]

Abstract:

Biographical Note: Carolyn Parkinson, PhD, is Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, UCLA. I’m interested in how the human brain represents, navigates, and shapes its social environment. My research integrates theory and methods from social psychology with computational techniques that exploit the wealth of information contained in patterns of ties in real-world social networks and in distributed patterns of brain activity.

My current work is primarily concerned with better understanding the mental architecture involved in encoding the structure of our social networks, and the cognitive and behavioral consequences of this structure. By combining the systematic characterization of real-world social relationships with methods for assessing information processing within individual brains, this line of research aims to provide insight into interactions between social networks and human cognition.

Readings (* = required)

Tanya Luhrmann, PhD

Time: Thursday, June 20, 9:00–10:30 am

Title: The Voices of God and the Voices of Psychosis in the US, Ghana and India

Abstract: This talk examines the phenomenological features of voice-hearing among many different kinds of people. I draw from hundreds and hundreds of interviews with people who do, and do not, meet criteria for serious psychotic disorder and who have experiences of hearing voices, and from research that sought to train non-clinical subjects to have more sensory experiences of God. I found that specific practices—inner sense cultivation, or the practice of attending to inner sensory experience—increased the likeliness that people in the non-clinical population would report that they had a sensory or quasi sensory experience of God. I also found that local models of mind affected the frequency with which the nonclinical religious population reported hearing God’s auditory voice, and the content of voices heard by the clinical population. This suggested that perceptual experiences can be altered to some degree by culture.

Biographical Note: Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural and the world of psychosis. She has done ethnography on the streets of Chicago with homeless and psychotic women, and worked with people who hear voices in Chennai, Accra and the South Bay. She has also done fieldwork with evangelical Christians who seek to hear God speak back, with Zoroastrians who set out to create a more mystical faith, and with people who practice magic. She uses a combination of ethnographic and experimental methods to understand the phenomenology of unusual sensory experiences, the way they are shaped by ideas about minds and persons, and what we can learn from this social shaping that can help us to help those whose voices are distressing.

She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007.When God Talks Back was named a NYT Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. Her new book, Our Most Troubling Madness: Schizophrenia and Culture, will be published by the University of California Press in 2016.

Readings (* = required)

Tanya Luhrmann, PhD

Time: Thursday, June 20, 11:00 am–12:30 pm

Title: “Is the Shaman Schizophrenic, After All? How Religious Practice May Change Psychotic Experience”

Abstract: When anthropology was a young discipline, people smitten with the romance of cultural relativism argued that those who were diagnosed with schizophrenia in our society would simply be artists or shamans in another. When the biomedical model began to dominate psychiatry, it seemed clear that this romantic vision was a mistake. In recent decades, however, not only anthropologists but also psychiatrists have begun to wonder whether forms of cultural practice might alter the experience of even so profound an illness as schizophrenia in powerful ways. In this talk I present the best evidence for this possibility that I have yet encountered by examining a spirit possession practice in Ghana.

Biographical Note: Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural and the world of psychosis. She has done ethnography on the streets of Chicago with homeless and psychotic women, and worked with people who hear voices in Chennai, Accra and the South Bay. She has also done fieldwork with evangelical Christians who seek to hear God speak back, with Zoroastrians who set out to create a more mystical faith, and with people who practice magic. She uses a combination of ethnographic and experimental methods to understand the phenomenology of unusual sensory experiences, the way they are shaped by ideas about minds and persons, and what we can learn from this social shaping that can help us to help those whose voices are distressing.

She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003 and received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007.When God Talks Back was named a NYT Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. Her new book, Our Most Troubling Madness: Schizophrenia and Culture, will be published by the University of California Press in 2016.

Readings (* = required)

Luhrmann, T. M., Padmavati, R., Tharoor, H., & Osei, A. (2015). Differences in voice-hearing experiences of people with psychosis in the USA, India and Ghana: interview-based study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 206(1), 41-44.

Luhrmann, T. M. (2017). Diversity within the psychotic continuum. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 43(1), 27-31.

Luhrmann, T. M., Alderson-Day, B., Bell, V., Bless, J. J., Corlett, P., Hugdahl, K., … & Peters, E. (2019). Beyond trauma: a multiple pathways approach to auditory hallucinations in clinical and nonclinical populations. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 45(Supplement_1), S24-S31.