Title: The importance of parent child communication about sex, self-confidence, and healthy relationships

Abstract:

About 1-in-10 children will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. About 1-in-7 girls and 1-in-25 boys will be sexually abused before age 18. 44% of rapes with penetration occur to children under age 18. Victims younger than 12 account for 15% of those raped, and another 29%  of rape victims are between 12 and 17.

Children are most vulnerable to sexual abuse and assault when parents have not discussed sex. Early sex education has a protective effect. Young children who do not know the proper words for their genitals are at risk for sexual victimization as they cannot provide an accurate description of events. Older children who have developed shame around their sexuality may decide to keep their victimization secret rather than tell a trusted adult. Schools teaching comprehensive sex education saw 16% fewer boys and 15% fewer girls had sex by the end of 8th grade compared to students at other schools. Parents must be trained and embrace talking early and often about sex since schools vary in sexual education and comprehensive programs. Earlier introduction to sexual activity may predict depression, alcohol use, multiple sexual partners, and STIs. This talk will address evidence based protocols for parents to talk to their kids about sex, sexuality at every developmental stage and using modern therapeutic techniques like CBT and DBT to open the lines of communication. Lastly, informing how therapists and parents can help children handle rejection, express their boundaries, and have healthier relationships.

Biography:

 Lis is a medical doctor who is a double board certified Adult and Child Psychiatrist. Dr. Lea is active in the American Psychiatric Association, having served as a member of their National Ethics Committee and on the Board of Trustees. She served as Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York University Medical Center, and has presented numerous symposia and workshops at the annual APA meetings and at the meetings of the Institute of Psychiatric Services. Her Academic publications have appeared in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice and the Journal of Academic Psychiatry.

Title: Paraventricular thalamus provides a polysynaptic brake on limbic crf neurons to sex-dependently blunt risky alcohol drinking and avoidance behavior

Abstract:

Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) neurons that synthesize and release the stress neuropeptide corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) drive binge alcohol drinking and anxiety, behaviors that are primary risk factors for alcohol use disorder (AUD) and comorbid neuropsychiatric diseases more common in women than men. Here, we show that female C57BL/6J mice binge drink more than males and have greater basal BNST^CRF neuron excitability and synaptic excitation. We identified a dense VGLUT2+ glutamatergic synaptic input from the paraventricular thalamus (PVT) that is anatomically similar in males and females. These PVT^BNST neurons release glutamate directly onto BNST^CRF neurons but also engage a large BNST interneuron population to ultimately provide a net inhibition of BNST^CRF neurons, and both components of this polysynaptic PVT^VGLUT2-BNST^CRF circuit are more robust in females than males. While chemogenetic inhibition of the general PVT^VGLUT2 neuron population suppressed binge alcohol drinking in both sexes, chemogenetic inhibition specifically of the PVT^BNST projection promoted this behavior in females without affecting males; chemogenetic activation of the pathway was sufficient to reduce avoidance behavior in both sexes in anxiogenic contexts. We also show that withdrawal from repeated binge drinking produces a female-like phenotype in the male PVT-BNST^CRF excitatory synapse without altering the function of PVT^BNST neurons per se. Our data describe a complex and unique behavioral role of the feedforward inhibitory PVT^VGLUT2-BNST^CRF glutamatergic circuit that is more robust in females and undergoes sex-dependent alcohol-induced plasticity.

Biography:

Olivia completed her PhD in neuroscience in June 2020 at Weill Cornell Medicine and will start her MD at Sackler School of Medicine in fall 2020. She plans to become a psychiatrist while continuing researching the underlying brain mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disorders. In her spare time, she is a science writer for both technical and laymen articles that have been published on sites such as Technology Networks.

Title: The learning disabling effects of mind-shame

Abstract:

We are all wired to experience shame. We can feel shame about any aspect, attribute, ability, possession, relation, or reflection of ourselves that we consider to be important and, in relation to which, we we consider ourselves to be failing or not good enough. Just as it is natural for us to feel pain when our bodies get hurt, it’s natural for us to feel shame when our ‘selves’ get hurt. And, just as it is natural for us to want to avoid what causes us pain, it’s natural for us to want to avoid what causes us to feel shame.  What happens to children who grow up ashamed of their learning? What happens to children who grow up ashamed of their minds? This session will present the learning disabling effects of that result from children learning to feel ashamed of their minds, of thier abilities to learn.

Biography:

President of Learning Stewards and Director of the Children of the Code Project,  David Boulton is a learning-activist, technologist, public speaker, documentary producer, and author.  As a learning theorist and architect David designed Apple Computer’s ‘Electronic Campus’. He has been an adviser to the Chair of the California Senate Education Committee, a member of the U.S. D.O.E.’s Gateway Project, and a featured blogger for the National Association of School Superintendents. He appeared in the PBS Television show “The New Science of Learning: Brain Fitness for Kids” and in the Science Network’s “The New Science of Educating” broadcast. David's current project, the "Magic Ladder", is a revolutionary new technology and pedagogy for learning to read. 

 

Title: History, racism and the haunting of american psychiatry mab segrest 1

Abstract:

This exercise on the importance of psychiatric history to the field and the broader culture might apply to many of the session topics in this webinar. I am submitting this abstract to the broadest designation, “Psychiatry.” The focus of my study is the haunting of American psychiatry, but its scope is transnational and its implications of today given American bedlam surely apparent to the world.

Biography:

Mab Segrest is Fuller-Maathai Professor Emeritus of Gender and Women’s Studies at Connecticut College in New London, CT, USA. Segrest earned her PhD from Duke University in 1979. In addition to Connecticut College where she taught from 2002 to 2014, she had fellowships from Emory University (Atlanta, GA), Tulane University (New Orleans, LA), Georgia College and State University (Milledgeville, GA). She is author of Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum (The New Press, 2020). She is a long-time student of and participant in US social movements from a transnational and intersectional feminist perspective. She is also the author of the award-winning Memoir of a Race Traitor: Fighting Racism in the American South, published in 1994 to become a classic of white anti-racist practice (released in a 25th anniversary edition in 2019).

Title: Heart rate variability: new perspectives on assessment of stress and health risk at the workplace

Abstract:

Cardiovascular diseases are the highest cause of death in the world (World Health Organization, 2014).  Many of these deaths may be workplace-related (Chandola et al., 2008). Long hours at work seem to be influencing the increased risks of heart diseases (Kivimaki & Kawachi, 2015). Workplace stress can be defined as the “discrepancies between the physiological demands within a workplace and the inability of employees to either manage or cope with such work demands” (Babatunde, 2013, p. 73). The varied nature and perception of stress is exemplified from literature that shows stress being either a stimulus, or a response, or a stimulus-response combination, also known as a transactional relationship between one or more individuals and the environment, leading to an initiative towards a physiological standpoint.

This research opted for a correlational study which involves 85 full-time employees who were working at least 40 hours per week in a large corporation participated in this study. The POQA and PSS were used to correlate with HRV. Astonishing findings emerged. Significant positive correlations were found between Emotional Stress and Heart Rate Variability and between Intention to Quit and Heart Rate Variability. In other words, the researcher has to make sense the following surprising findings: (1) The higher the emotional stress an employee faces, the healthier they are.  (2) Healthier employees may have higher intentions of quitting their jobs. The surprising results may be attributed to personality, culture, emotional regulation and age among others

Biography:

Adrian Low is a chartered psychologist (BPS) and a coaching psychologist (MISCP) that has graduated with a Doctor of Clinical & Industrial/Organisational Psychology. He also holds a master’s degree in Education. Dr. Low’s workplace stress research has won the presidential award for doctoral research excellence at the California Southern University and since then he has been invited to be a keynote speaker in many conferences worldwide. Dr. Low is the president of the Hong Kong Association of Psychology, a not-for-profit organisation. Besides that, he is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Worcester as well as an adjunct lecturer at the HKU (university of Hong Kong) School of Professional and Continuing Education.

Title: A place at the table. How neuroscience came to the rescue of talking therapy.

Abstract:

In recent years in the UK, the treatment for mental illness became a combination of 3 elements: psychiatry, medication and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Traditional talking therapies were deemed less suitable, because they took too long and didn’t “cure” people. Short term, CBT treatment looked as if it were the “new thing”. Then came neuroscience. Neuroscience brought a resource that therapists can use: it told us that the brain and the nervous system are intrinsically relational; that we have one brain and one nervous system. Neuroscience gave psychotherapists the limbic system, polyvagal theory, limbic revision, and the importance of biotemperament. Traditional talking therapists, and those who are concerned with matters of the mind and body- memory have consistently and repeatedly maintained that reciprocal relationships – or just one - is absolutely fundamental for our wellbeing. Neuroscience gave us something that we could “use” – tools, skills – with which psychotherapists could agitate the sediment in which our clients had become stuck. I will attempt to show how two apparently opposing worlds of psychotherapy and neuroscience came together, and how exciting this is for traditional talking therapy. You will hear real clients’ stories and how I worked with them across five distinct settings including private hospital, private practice and prison. I will explain how I use two completely different modalities of training – Existential Psychotherapy (which challenges the medical model) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (which was born out of neuroscience); and how neuroscience gave us something we could use to treat the untreatables.

Biography:

Helen Brice has a busy private practice in London. She is a highly experienced psychotherapist for individuals and couples, with a specialist interest in Personality Disorders, particularly BPD/EUPD, and with clients who are emotionally over-controlled with personalities that are avoidant, obsessivecompulsive, paranoid and also chronically depressed or have anorexia nervosa. Helen’s referrals come from psychiatrists, the Maudsley Hospital and, since her pioneering Stimmung Therapy Programme for musicians and actors, the British Association Of Performance Arts Medicine and the Equity Charitable Trust. She spoke at the World Music Conference 2020, and at the Society For Existential Analysis Conference in 2018.

Title: A review of mental health responses to pandemics

Biography:

OBJECTIVE: Author reviewed the literature published from 2005 regarding mental health responses to pandemics. METHOD: The review began with a computerized literature search. Further sources were located through citations from articles identified in the original search. RESULTS: The author synthesized the contents of the articles reviewed using the categories of 1) Identifying the mental health related implications of a pandemic as well as effects from being in quarantine 2) Effects on healthcare professionals 3) Identifying high risk populations 4) Optimizing screening protocols 5) Administering intervention and treatment effectively 6) Evidence based treatments targeting mental health symptoms CONCLUSION: Prior research has shown that there can be profound mental health related effects from a pandemic and those who are already dealing with mental illness have an exacerbation of symptoms. High risk populations should be identified with heightened screening, and appropriate evidence-based interventions administered which can help decrease mental health related symptoms.

Title: Personality disorders – who are we?

Abstract:

Personality disorders cover a wide range of areas and it is quite hard to understand. I suffer from borderline personality disorder and its hard for me to even get the idea of things. Terms are given not because it makes you suddenly a different person but so it is easier for you to find acceptance within yourself. In addition to this it allows other people to gain an understanding of our complex brains. There is simply not enough awareness of how common these personality disorders are and how it affects us on a daily basis. This talk will explain the types of disorders classification, how common they are and some real life stories from myself, managing my traits of borderline personality disorder.

Biography:

Soumya embarked on a Gap year in 2018 and worked as a care assisstant in a care home and a support worker for autistic adults. 2019 she got accepted into Dundee Medical School and now is a 2nd year medical student

Title: The electroactive signal for the tau peptide: neuromolecular imaging (nmi): a live nanotechnology for alzheimer, parkinson and epilepsy disease

Abstract:

The Tau gene and its reported six Tau isoforms are known to be present in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, When we attempt to discern Parkinson disease, Lewy Body Dementia and Alzheimer disease including other neurodegenerative disorders of asynchrony similar to epileptogenic seizures, we are met with a huge question mark as to both diagnose and treat because the central distinctions among these dreaded diseases are beset with confusing guidelines. To this point, previous post mortem studies have assayed Lewy Bodies, alpha synuclein, the amyloid precursor proteins and Tau but the limitations of “life after death” (post mortem) may simply add to mis-diagnoses. There is a need to cure the dementia of tauopathies! The BRODERICK PROBE® series of biosensors work by electrochemical detection and are comprised of carbon and/or carbon allotropes in one example and fiber optic proteins in another of the many examples. In the present study, the original carbon sensors, the carbon/lipid/phosphotidyl polymers were used to neuromolecular image Tau LIVE. The nanoprobe is unique from others as it is so tiny that it can be used anywhere and for any length of time; the operationally stable biomedical biosensors/nanoprobes do not cause gliosis (scar tissue) nor do they produce infection (bacterial growth). The results show that the nanoprobe acts to image Tau through mechanisms of phosphorylation. The LIVE electroactive image for Tau in the precise striatal basal neurons of the living Parkinson subject is actually seen here, online and within seconds likely as a metal complex, phosphorylated in a Parkinson subject. Thus, the elusive nature of Tau is further elucidated as a dynamic redox reaction occuring LIVE in the brain of the living Tau patient and animal via the BRODERICK PROBE®. Accepted as Clinical Paper/Technical Report by MedCrave (Case Reports Journal), April, 2021.

Biography:

Patricia A. Broderick has completed her PhD from St John’s University, Queens, NY, USA and her postdoctoral studies from The Albert Einstein Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA and Cornell University Medical School, White Plains, NY, USA. Patricia serves as Tenured and Full Medical Professor in the Dept. of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences at the City University of New York School of Medicine and as Director of the Neurobiology Course at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education, CUNY School of Medicine, CCNY. A highly recognized expert and prominent editor, author, inventor and lecturer, Patricia has published more than 500 papers in reputed journals and sought after books and she serves as an editorial board member of repute worldwide. Dr. Broderick holds several patents and trademarks and is the Founder and CEO of Eazysense Nanotechnologies Inc.and the Broderick Brain Foundation.

Title: The psychological aftermath of voluntary medical assistance after the terrorist attack on the brussels metro: who’s the doctor for the doctor?

Abstract:

On 2016 March 22th, the national airport and the metro in Brussels were the target of two successive terrorist attacks which killed 35 people and seriously injured hundreds of others. Due to my voluntary commitment near the Maelbeek metro station, I was left out in terms of acute psychosocial relief, since I was not involved in an organization such as fire brigade or police. Research shows that in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, healthcare providers directly involved in the rescue of these victims report a significantly higher psychological impact, defined by Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, than those not directly involved. A number of victims and rescue workers exhibit a mixture of PTSD and mild Traumatic Brain Injury, which is a typical trauma-like brain concussion syndrome. Furthermore, unaffiliated volunteers seem to be at higher risk of posttraumatic stress, while professional rescue workers appear to be more protected. As a child psychiatrist in training, I quit my residency after the attack, and started a carreer in occupational medicine. In Brussels, I work with employers and employees who experienced this tragedy. In my presentation I give answers on the following questions: How did they deal with this event? What impact do these terrorist attacks still have, five years later? What are the lessons learned in the field of psychotrauma care in Belgium? And finally, I will tell you my story about the impact of the event in my doctor’s office, for my patients and likewise, for me as a doctor.

Biography:

Tine Gregoor is a Belgian occupational health physician, child consultation clinic physician, public speaker, author and filantropist. She has experience in anesthesiology and childhood psychiatry and has a special interest in the field of maternity protection, fertility, mental illness, particulary in the management of psychotrauma. During the 2016 Brussels attacks at the Maelbeek metrostation, Gregoor was a first responder, helped the most heavily injured in a prehospital setting. In her book ‘Bombs in Brussels’, which she wrote together with war journalist Joanie de Rijke, she goes in search of victims, relatives, aid workers, policymakers and security services five years afterwards.

Title: Unchanging the brain: how to cope with uncertainty during difficult times

Abstract:

Whether one is facing a global, personal, or employment crisis, or perhaps experiencing a mix of all three, building resilience will assist in providing hope for not only the present but the future. This presentation will focus on brain-behavioral impact of stress and a range of mixed emotions upon one’s health and happiness. Evidenced-based approaches and resources, including user-friendly applications to use during moments of challenge and hardship will be discussed. A sample “Care Plan” will be reviewed which may assist one to experience resilience leading to a sense of calm and confidence to handle issues of concern.

Biography:

Leonard-Zabel is a Full Professor of Psychology and serves as the Psychology Department Coordinator at Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts. She owns and operates a private clinic specializing in School Psychology/School Neuropsychology and Clinical Forensic Examining. She holds diplomat and fellow certificates/certifications in Neuropsychology, Forensic Counseling and Examining, Psychotherapy, Autism, Addictions, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Clinical Anxiety, Disability Analysis, Brain-Behavioral International Coaching, Telepractice and in Homeland Security. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Board of Disability Analysts. Dr. Leonard-Zabel is the recent recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in School Neuropsychology from the American Board of School Neuropsychology. She serves on the Learning Disabilities Worldwide Congress as one of the Board of Directors (LDW). Dr. Leonard-Zabel recently received international awards acknowledging her Keynote addresses encompassing school neuropsychological research on assessment approaches involving Autism Spectrum Disorders, Adolescent Addiction, and Mental Health focusing on the Anxious Brain, Assessment Practices, Learning Differences, Ethics & Law and Traumatic Brain Injury. Dr. Leonard-Zabel was awarded in December 2019 the title of Global Goodwill Ambassador (GGA), representing the USA with the “Humanitarian” designation for her volunteerism both nationally and internationally. Throughout her career at Curry College, she was awarded the Curry College Excellence in Teaching Researcher of the Year Award, Excellence in Teaching with Partnerships & Collaboration Award, Excellence and Research in the Field, and Person of the Year, acknowledging excellence in teaching, mentorship, collegiality, leadership, and community service. Dr. Leonard-Zabel presents nationally and internationally on an ongoing basis.