BrainHealth Calendar
Psychology and Neuroscience of Human Values
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Professor, author and podcaster Daniel Krawczyk, PhD, studies reasoning, decision-making, human performance, and the relationships between the brain and behavior during these processes. His cognitive neuroscience research lab focuses on understanding reasoning and decision making using a diversity of methods, including behavioral studies, machine learning, imaging and brain stimulation. He has led multiple federally funded studies evaluating thinking and cognitive performance.
Human Molecular Neuroscience Insight into the Next Generation of Pain Therapeutics
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The Center for Advanced Pain Studies (CAPS) at UTD focuses on developing non-opioid pain therapeutics. Theodore Price, PhD, will discuss how his lab collaborates to profile the molecular composition of pain circuits in humans, and how they change when people have chronic pain, describing how this data can help validate targets and develop non-opioid pain therapeutics and seven companies working to achieve commercialization of these ideas and products.
Why We Remember – and How to Hold on to What Matters Most
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Charan Ranganath, PhD, explains the hidden role memory plays in our lives and how we imagine the future. Author of the New York Times bestseller Why We Remember, Dr. Ranganath has pioneered a new way of thinking about the everyday act of remembering. One of the world’s top memory researchers, his work sheds light on the powerful role of memory in nearly every aspect of life, from recalling faces and names, to learning, decision-making, trauma and healing. He is director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at UC Davis and is an affiliated faculty with the Center for Mind and Brain.
The Neuroscience of Emotional Fitness
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The enormous increase in mental health disorders around the world demands a new view of brain health that satisfies the 4Ps: personalized, preventive, predictive and participatory. Paul Zak, PhD, defines emotional fitness, shares research that has established the 4Ps for emotional health, and discusses findings from the launch of a scalable real-time app that measures emotional fitness neurologically and guides users to improved emotional fitness.
The Pit Stop Model of Brain Care: A Lifelong Brain Health Service Line
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The current approach to brain care is largely reactive, considered only when patients or families raise concerns. This approach is not working, and the more money is spent on it, the greater disability is generated. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, MD, PhD, proposes a transformative approach, leveraging technology and learning from car racing to establish a “pit stop model of brain care,” focused on a Brain Health Service Line designed to support individuals across the lifespan.
Reducing the Risks of Brain Injury
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Dr. Kim Gorgens reframes our understanding of brain injury by connecting with often-overlooked populations. Reaching millions of viewers through inspiring TED talks on youth sports concussion and brain injuries in criminal justice, Dr. Gorgens has appeared on CNN with Anderson Cooper, NPR and 20/20. A professor of psychology at University of Denver, she manages a large portfolio of brain injury related research and has lectured extensively around the world. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including U.S. News, Newsweek, The Economist, People and more.
Unleashing Imagination: The Creative Brain and AI
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In an age driven by AI, neuroscientist Adam Green, PhD, predicts an increasing demand for human creativity. Leader of a $2.5 million National Science Foundation project on creativity in STEM, he seeks to measure innovative thinking as a predictor of success, gauge how different aspects of creativity may work together, and map the seemingly miraculous process of creative ideation. Dr. Green directs the Lab for Relational Cognition at Georgetown University and is co-founder of The Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity and incoming editor-in-chief at Creativity Research Journal. Dr. Green was a BrainHealth speaker in 2019 and is back by popular demand.
Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain to Transform the Way You Work
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An eye surgeon and cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Mithu Storoni advocates for a new, hyperefficient way of working. The work that matters most in our technology-dominated workplace – generating brilliant ideas, solving complex problems, and learning – can’t be manufactured like outputs on an assembly line. Our brains function like a car’s engine, with multiple gears that put the brain in optimal mode for different mental challenges – to create, solve and learn.