FRIDAY, October 19, 2012
8:45 Introduction: Robert Lemelson, President, FPR; Research Anthropologist, Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior; Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology, UCLA
9:00–10:15 Session 1: “Why Culture, Mind, and Brain?”
Chair: Greg Downey, Department of Anthropology, Macquarie University
9:00 The weirdest people in the world: The inductive challenge for the behavioral sciences / Steven Heine, Department of Psychology, UBC
9:25 Weird tasks for weird brains: Constraints and biases in brain imaging research / Marco Iacoboni, Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA
9:50 Weird enough for you yet?: A neuroanthropological response to Steven Heine and Marco Iacoboni / Greg Downey, Department of Anthropology, Macquarie University
10:15–2:15 Session 2: Sociocultural Influences on Gene Expression
Chair: Steve W. Cole, Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology & Oncology, UCLA
10:15 Overview: Social regulation of gene expression / Steve W. Cole, Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology & Oncology, UCLA
10:40–11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 Socioeconomic status and gene expression / Edith Chen, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University
11:25 Behavioral, biological, and epigenetic consequences of different early social experiences in primates / Stephen Suomi, Section on Comparative Behavioral Genetics, NICHD
11:50 Social and individual factors, separately and in interaction, affect gene expression in immunodeficient rhesus monkeys / John Capitanio, Department of Psychology, UCD
12:15–1:15 Lunch
1:15 Social isolation / John Cacioppo, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago; and Steve Cole, Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology & Oncology, UCLA
1:40 PANEL DISCUSSION with Speakers
Invited Discussants: Beate Ritz, Department of Epidemiology, UCLA; Carol M. Worthman, Department of Anthropology, Emory University
2:15–5:00 Session 3: Linking Cultural and Genetic Diversity in Mind, Brain and Body
Chair: Joan Chiao, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University
2:15 Insights from rare variant genetic diversity in human populations / John Novembre, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, UCLA
2:40 Genomics for the world: Population genetics in the personal genome era / Carlos D. Bustamante, Department of Genetics, Stanford University
3:05 Gene-culture interactions: The role of oxytocin receptor polymorphism in socio-emotional processes in different cultures / Heejung Kim, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, UCSB
3:30–3:50 Coffee Break
3:50 Cultural neuroscience: Progress and future directions / Joan Chiao, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University
4:15 PANEL DISCUSSION with Speakers
Invited Discussant: Clarence Gravlee, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida
5:00 Adjourn
SATURDAY, October 20, 2012
9:00–10:40 Session 4: Stress and Resilience
Chair: Daniel Lende, Department of Anthropology, University of South Florida
9:00 Early life adversity, allostasis, and resilience / Paul Plotsky, Stress Neurobiology Lab, Emory University
9:25 Cultural meaning, social structure, and the stress process: Lessons from hypertension in the African Diaspora / Clarence Gravlee, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida
9:50 From ethnography to epigenetics: Mixed methods mental health research in Nepal / Brandon Kohrt, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, George Washington University
10:15 Varieties of resilience in MIDUS / Carol Ryff, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
10:40–11:00 Coffee Break
11:00 PANEL DISCUSSION with Speakers
Invited Discussant: Edith Chen, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University
11:35–2:30 Session 5: Culture, Cognition, and Self: Understanding Neuroplasticity
Chair: Shinobu Kitayama, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan
11:35 Culture wires the brain: A cognitive neuroscience perspective / Denise Park, Center for Vital Longevity, University of Texas, Dallas
12:00 Understanding the self: A cultural neuroscience approach / Georg Northoff, University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research
12:25 Hearing voices in Accra and Chennai: How the culture makes a difference to psychiatric experience / Tanya Luhrmann, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
1:00–2:00 Lunch
2:00 5-HTTLPR polymorphism moderates the association between a cultural value and the social brain network / Shihui Han, Department of Psychology, Peking University
2:25 Error-related brain activity reveals self-centric motivation: Culture matters / Shinobu Kitayama, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan
2:50 PANEL DISCUSSION with Speakers
Invited Discussant: Laurence Kirmayer, Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University
3:25–3:50 Session 6: Ethnographic Film
3:25 Case study: Standing on the edge of a thorn / Robert Lemelson, President, FPR; Research Anthropologist, Semel Institute for Neuroscience; Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology, UCLA
3:50–4:10 Coffee Break
4:10–5:15 Session 7: (Multiple) Pathways to Interdisciplinarity
Chair: Mirella Dapretto, PhD, Director, FPR-UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development; Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA
4:10 PANEL DISCUSSION with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Sourthern California; Shinobu Kitayama, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan; Elizabeth Reynolds Losin, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, University of Colorado at Boulder; Thomas Weisner, Departments of Anthropology and Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA; Carol M. Worthman, Department of Anthropology, Emory University
5:10–5:15 Concluding Remarks
5:15 Adjourn