Dr. Rebecca Knickmeyer, University of North Carolina will give a talk this Friday, May 1 on “Sex on the Brain: Gonadal Steroids and Genetic Factors in Human Neurodevelopment” (please see abstract below). The seminar will be held in the Student Building room 150 at 2:00PM. This seminar is part of the Spring 2009 IU Behavior Colloquia, sponsored by CISAB and hosted by Michael Muehlenbein, Dept. of Antrhopology. ALL interested are welcome to attend!
SCHEDULE A MEETING WITH DR. KNICKMEYER:
We are preparing Rebecca’s itinerary for meetings with individuals or groups on Thursday, April 30 in the afternoon and Friday, May 1 from 9am to Noon. If you are interested in scheduling a meeting with Rebecca please send the day and time(s) you are available. Thank you!
INFO ON DR. KNICKMEYER:
B.A., Goucher College
Ph.D., University of Cambridge
Postdoctoral Training: The Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center and Department of Psychiatry, UNC-Chapel Hill
Web site: http://www.med.unc.edu/psych/directories/faculty/rebecca-knickmeyer-ph-d/
Dr. Knickmeyer's research is focused on understanding the mechanisms which modulate the differential vulnerability to and expression of neurodevelopmental disorders in each sex, with a particular focus on hormonal and genetic factors. She is currently using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to explore the sexual differentiation of the brain in human children and in non-human primates. She is also studying early brain development in children with sex chromosome abnormalities, such as Turner Syndrome, and the effects of prenatal exposure to antidepressant medications on early brain development.
ABSTRACT: Relative risk levels for many psychiatric disorders are dramatically different in males and females. Early-onset neurodevelopmental disorders occur significantly more often in males then females, including autism, ADHD, and early onset persistent antisocial behavior. Other conditions, such as schizophrenia, occur at similar rates in males and females, but the sexes differ in age of onset, symptomatology and course of disease. It has been hypothesized that the prevalence and expression of these disorders is related to sex differences in brain development and that sex chromosome effects and early exposure to gonadal hormones (especially androgens and estrogens) are strong candidates for a causal role. The speaker will discuss strategies for studying sex hormone and sex chromosome effects in human populations. She will characterize sex-differences in brain morphology during infancy and childhood, review evidence linking variation in prenatal testosterone exposure to social and communicative development and present recent data on whether early testosterone exposure and sex chromosome abnormalities predict variation in neonatal brain morphology.
No comments:
Post a Comment