Unlocking PTSD: From Single Cells to Improved Therapeutics
Matthew J. Girgenti discusses how research on individual brain cells and the three-dimensional organization of DNA is changing the biological understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder. The seminar examines how these approaches reveal trauma-associated brain changes and identify possible targets for more effective, personalized treatments. Girgenti is a neuroscientist in Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry. Jeffrey Borenstein moderates this Meet the Scientist session. Online via the BBRF Zoom webinar. Tuesday 13 October 2026, 14:00 EDT (America/New_York; UTC−4). Follow Register Today on the organizer’s event page to the event-specific Zoom form. Advance registration is available to researchers, students, healthcare providers, mental-health organizations, patients and family members.
Trauma Psychology Grant
The American Psychological Foundation and APA Division 56 offer one USD 3,750 grant for innovative work that alleviates trauma. Applicants must be doctoral-level psychologists no more than ten years postdoctoral, with demonstrated knowledge of trauma research and the capacity to carry out the project. They must be affiliated with a nonprofit charitable, educational or scientific institution, or a governmental entity operating exclusively for charitable and educational purposes. Submit a project proposal, timeline, detailed budget with justification and CV. Review considers project quality, feasibility, potential impact, originality and the applicant’s capability. The deadline is 9 October 2026. Applications are open through the named Trauma Psychology Grant campaign in APF’s GivingData portal; an account is required. Full formatting and submission instructions are available after signing in.
Digital Minds: Brain Development in the Age of Technology
Digital Minds: Brain Development in the Age of Technology examines how our increasingly connected world shapes mental and cognitive health. From screen time and social media to virtual interactions, this seminar delves into the latest research on how technology influences brain development, relationships, and emotional well-being. Join us to explore strategies for harnessing technology's benefits while mitigating its potential challenges, empowering you to thrive in a digital age.
Applied cognitive neuroscience to improve learning and therapeutics
Advancements in cognitive neuroscience have provided profound insights into the workings of the human brain and the methods used offer opportunities to enhance performance, cognition, and mental health. Drawing upon interdisciplinary collaborations in the University of California San Diego, Human Performance Optimization Lab, this talk explores the application of cognitive neuroscience principles in three domains to improve human performance and alleviate mental health challenges. The first section will discuss studies addressing the role of vision and oculomotor function in athletic performance and the potential to train these foundational abilities to improve performance and sports outcomes. The second domain considers the use of electrophysiological measurements of the brain and heart to detect, and possibly predict, errors in manual performance, as shown in a series of studies with surgeons as they perform robot-assisted surgery. Lastly, findings from clinical trials testing personalized interventional treatments for mood disorders will be discussed in which the temporal and spatial parameters of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) are individualized to test if personalization improves treatment response and can be used as predictive biomarkers to guide treatment selection. Together, these translational studies use the measurement tools and constructs of cognitive neuroscience to improve human performance and well-being.
Brain Connectivity Workshop
Founded in 2002, the Brain Connectivity Workshop (BCW) is an annual international meeting for in-depth discussions of all aspects of brain connectivity research. By bringing together experts in computational neuroscience, neuroscience methodology and experimental neuroscience, it aims to improve the understanding of the relationship between anatomical connectivity, brain dynamics and cognitive function. These workshops have a unique format, featuring only short presentations followed by intense discussion. This year’s workshop is co-organised by Wellcome, putting the spotlight on brain connectivity in mental health disorders. We look forward to having you join us for this exciting, thought-provoking and inclusive event.
The Insights and Outcomes of the Wellcome-funded Waiting Times Project
Waiting is one of healthcare’s core experiences. It is there in the time it takes to access services; through the days, weeks, months or years needed for diagnoses; in the time that treatment takes; and in the elongated time-frames of recovery, relapse, remission and dying.Funded by the Wellcome Trust, our project opens up what it means to wait in and for healthcare by examining lived experiences, representations and histories of delayed and impeded time.In an era in which time is lived at increasingly different and complex tempos, Waiting Times looks to understand both the difficulties and vital significance of waiting for practices of care, offering a fundamental re-conceptualisation of the relation between time and care in contemporary thinking about health, illness, and wellbeing.
The Picower Institute Spring 2023 Symposium "Environmental and Social Determinants of Child Mental Health
Studies show that abuse, neglect or trauma during childhood can lead to lifelong struggles including with mental health. Fortunately research also indicates that solutions and interventions at various stages of life can be developed to help. But even among people who remain resilient or do not experience acute stresses, a lack of opportunity early in life due to poverty or systemic racism can still constrain their ability to realize their full potential. In what ways are health and other outcomes affected by early life difficulty? What can individuals and institutions do to enhance opportunity?" "This daylong event will feature talks by neuroscientists, policy experts, physicians, educators and activists as they discuss how our experiences and biology work together to affect how our minds develop and what can be accomplished in helping people overcome early disadvantages.
Fragile minds in a scary world: trauma and post traumatic stress in very young children
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a prevalent and disabling condition that affects larger numbers of children and adolescents worldwide. Until recently, we have understood little about the nature of PTSD reactions in our youngest children (aged under 8 years old). This talk describes our work over the last 15 years working with this very young age group. It overviews how we need a markedly different PTSD diagnosis for very young children, data on the prevalence of this new diagnostic algorithm, and the development of a psychological intervention and its evaluation in a clinical trial.
Developmental disorders of presynaptic vesicle cycling - Synaptotagmin-1 and beyond
Post-diagnostic research on rare genetic developmental disorders presents new opportunities (and a few challenges) for discovery neuroscience and translation. In this talk, Kate will describe and discuss neurodevelopmental phenotypes arising from rare, high penetrance genomic variants which directly influence pre-synaptic vesicle cycling (SVC disorders). She will focus on Synaptotagmin-1 Associated Neurodevelopmental Disorder (also known as Baker Gordon Syndrome), first described in 2015 and now diagnosed in more than 50 children and young people worldwide. She will then present work-in-progress by her group on the neurodevelopmental spectrum of SVC disorders more broadly, and discuss opportunities for collaborative neuroscience which can bridge the gaps between genetic cause and complex neurological, cognitive and mental health outcomes.
Self-direction in daily stress management: the solution for mental health issues
In the lecture Yvette Roke and Jamie Hoefakker will discuss the positive and negative effects of daily stress on mental health. They will also highlight which characteristics are likely to cause more stress related issues, and why recovery time is very important. They will give an understanding of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in relation to daily stress and they will discuss the app, SAM the stress autism mate, developed and investigated (SCED design) in co-creation with their patients with ASD.
How People Form Beliefs
In this talk I will present our recent behavioural and neuroscience research on how the brain motivates itself to form particular beliefs and why it does so. I will propose that the utility of a belief is derived from the potential outcomes associated with holding it. Outcomes can be internal (e.g., positive/negative feelings) or external (e.g., material gain/loss), and only some are dependent on belief accuracy. We show that belief change occurs when the potential outcomes of holding it alters, for example when moving from a safe environment to a threatening environment. Our findings yield predictions about how belief formation alters as a function of mental health. We test these predictions using a linguistic analysis of participants’ web searches ‘in the wild’ to quantify the affective properties of information they consume and relate those to reported psychiatric symptoms. Finally, I will present a study in which we used our framework to alter the incentive structure of social media platforms to reduce the spread of misinformation and improve belief accuracy.
CNStalk: Using machine learning to predict mental health on the basis of brain, behaviour and environment
Black Excellence in Psychology
Ruth Winifred Howard (March 25, 1900 – February 12, 1997) was one of the first African-American women to earn a Ph.D. in Psychology. Her research focused on children with special needs. Join us as we celebrate her birthday anniversary with 5 distinguished Psychologists.
The neuroscience of lifestyle interventions for mental health: the BrainPark approach
Our everyday behaviours, such as physical activity, sleep, diet, meditation, and social connections, have a potent impact on our mental health and the health of our brain. BrainPark is working to harness this power by developing lifestyle-based interventions for mental health and investigating how they do and don’t change the brain, and for whom they are most effective. In this webinar, Dr Rebecca Segrave and Dr Chao Suo will discuss BrainPark’s approach to developing lifestyle-based interventions to help people get better control of compulsive behaviours, and the multi-modality neuroimaging approaches they take to investigating outcomes. The webinar will explore two current BrainPark trials: 1. Conquering Compulsions - investigating the capacity of physical exercise and meditation to alter reward processing and help people get better control of a wide range of unhelpful habits, from drinking to eating to cleaning. 2. The Brain Exercise Addiction Trial (BEAT) - an NHMRC funded investigation into the capacity of physical exercise to reverse the brain harms caused by long-term heavy cannabis use. Dr Rebecca Segrave is Deputy Director and Head of Interventions Research at BrainPark, the David Winston Turner Senior Research Fellow within the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, and an AHRPA registered Clinical Neuropsychologist. Dr Chao Suo is Head of Technology and Neuroimaging at BrainPark and a Research Fellow within the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health.
Network science and network medicine: New strategies for understanding and treating the biological basis of mental ill-health
The last twenty years have witnessed extraordinarily rapid progress in basic neuroscience, including breakthrough technologies such as optogenetics, and the collection of unprecedented amounts of neuroimaging, genetic and other data relevant to neuroscience and mental health. However, the translation of this progress into improved understanding of brain function and dysfunction has been comparatively slow. As a result, the development of therapeutics for mental health has stagnated too. One central challenge has been to extract meaning from these large, complex, multivariate datasets, which requires a shift towards systems-level mathematical and computational approaches. A second challenge has been reconciling different scales of investigation, from genes and molecules to cells, circuits, tissue, whole-brain, and ultimately behaviour. In this talk I will describe several strands of work using mathematical, statistical, and bioinformatic methods to bridge these gaps. Topics will include: using artificial neural networks to link the organization of large-scale brain connectivity to cognitive function; using multivariate statistical methods to link disease-related changes in brain networks to the underlying biological processes; and using network-based approaches to move from genetic insights towards drug discovey. Finally, I will discuss how simple organisms such as C. elegans can serve to inspire, test, and validate new methods and insights in networks neuroscience.
Computational Models of Compulsivity
Neural stem cells as biomarkers of cognitive aging and dementia
Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is implicated in memory formation and mood regulation. The Thuret lab investigates environmental and molecular mechanisms controlling the production of these adult-born neurons and how they impact mental health. We study neurogenesis in healthy ageing as well as in the context of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and depression. By approaching neurogenesis in health and disease, the strategy is two folds: (i) Validating the neurogenic process as a target for prevention and pharmacological interventions. (ii) Developing neurogenesis as a biomarker of disease prediction and progression. In this talk, I will focus on presenting some recent human studies demonstrating how hippocampal neural stem cells fate can be used as biomarkers of cognitive aging and dementia.
The Picower Institute Spring 2021 Symposium: Early Life Stress & Mental Health
Though studies show that abuse, neglect or trauma during childhood can lead to lifelong lifelong struggles including in mental health, research also indicates that solutions and interventions at various stages of life can be developed to help. And while many people manage to remain resilient, a lack of opportunity early in life, including because of poverty and systemic racism, can constrain their ability to realize their full potential. In what ways are health and other outcomes affected? How can systems instead restore opportunity? "The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory's biennial spring symposium, 'Early Life Stress & Mental Health,' will examine these issues. The daylong event will feature talks by neuroscientists, policy experts, physicians, educators and activists as they discuss how our experiences and biology work together to affect how our minds develop and what can be accomplished in helping people overcome early disadvantages.
Unpacking Nature from Nurture: Understanding how Family Processes Affect Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Mental Health problems among youth constitutes an area of significant social, educational, clinical, policy and public health concern. Understanding processes and mechanisms that underlie the development of mental health problems during childhood and adolescence requires theoretical and methodological integration across multiple scientific domains, including developmental science, neuroscience, genetics, education and prevention science. The primary focus of this presentation is to examine the relative role of genetic and family environmental influences on children’s emotional and behavioural development. Specifically, a complementary array of genetically sensitive and longitudinal research designs will be employed to examine the role of early environmental adversity (e.g. inter-parental conflict, negative parenting practices) relative to inherited factors in accounting for individual differences in children’s symptoms of psychopathology (e.g. depression, aggression, ADHD ). Examples of recent applications of this research to the development of evidence-based intervention programmes aimed at reducing psychopathology in the context of high-risk family settings will also be presented.
A developmental-cognitive perspective on the impact of adolescent social media use
Concerns about the impact of social media use on adolescent well-being and mental health are common. While the amount of research in this area has increased rapidly over the last 5 years, most outputs are still marred by a multitude of limitations. These shortcomings have left our understanding of social media effects severely limited, holding back both scientific discovery and policy interventions. This talk discusses how developmental, cognitive and neuroscientific approaches might provide a new and improved way of studying social media effects. It will detail new studies in support of this idea, and raise potential avenues for collaborative work across the Cambridge Neuroscience community. As the digital world now (re)shapes what it means for us to live, communicate and develop, only an interdisciplinary approach will allow us to truly understand its impacts.
Towards better interoceptive biomarkers in computational psychiatry
Empirical evidence and theoretical models both increasingly emphasize the importance of interoceptive processing in mental health. Indeed, many mood and psychiatric disorders involve disturbed feelings and/or beliefs about the visceral body. However, current methods to measure interoceptive ability are limited in a number of ways, restricting the utility and interpretation of interoceptive biomarkers in psychiatry. I will present some newly developed measures and models which aim to improve our understanding of disordered brain-body interaction in psychiatric illnesses.
Generation Covid-19: Should the fetus be worried?
Historically pregnant women and their unborn baby have been amongst those with the poorest outcomes in previous epidemics, most notably the Zika virus. For much of 2020, with the emergence of the novel coronavirus, the effect on the fetus remains unclear. While initial reports suggest that vertical transmission with SARS-CoV2 is reassuringly rare, the complex socioeconomic, domestic and broader maternal lifestyle factors which can influence a child’s lifelong well-being have been modulated during the experience of this pandemic. The developing brain is particularly susceptible to maternal stress, resulting in permanent structural changes and increased incidence of behavioural and mental health illness later in childhood. A large international longitudinal survey is being undertaken by the Department of Psychology to better understand the impact of the pandemic on those yet to be born.
Development of the social brain in adolescence and effects of social distancing
Adolescence is a period of life characterised by heightened sensitivity to social stimuli, an increased need for peer interaction and peer acceptance, and development of the social brain. Lockdown and social distancing measures intended to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 are reducing the opportunity to engage in face-to-face social interaction with peers. The consequences of social distancing on human social brain and social cognitive development are unknown, but animal research has shown that social deprivation and isolation have unique effects on brain and behaviour in adolescence compared with other stages of life. It is possible that social distancing might have a disproportionate effect on an age group for whom peer interaction is a vital aspect of development.
The early impact of COVID-19 on mental health and community physical health services and their patients’ mortality in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, UK
COVID -19 has affected social interaction and healthcare worldwide. This talk will focus on the impact of the pandemic and “lockdown” on mental health services, community physical health services, and patient mortality in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, based on the analysis of de-identified data from the primary NHS provider of secondary care mental health services to this population (~0.86 million)
Investigating the impact of the pandemic on adolescent anxiety and cognitive function
Meg was awarded funding to look into how the coronavirus pandemic has affected children's mental health and wellbeing.
The impact of Covid-19 on the mental health of children and young people
The recent pandemic arrived at a time when mental health of children and young people was deteriorating, particular among teenage girls and young women. Lockdown produced a plethora of mental health surveys, but very few of these had pre-pandemic data. This talk will summarise the current evidence of how covid-19 seems to have affected the mental health of children and young people from various studies in the UK.