Faculty from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) visited with LIBR investigators today to discuss their research areas, tour our facilities and learn about the research programs underway at LIBR. We were very pleased to welcome:

Mark Wolraich, M.D. – Shaun Walters Professor of Pediatrics, Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professor, Director, Child Study Center, Section Chief, Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
Barbara Bonner, Ph.D. – Professor of Pediatrics, Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, CHF/Jean Gumerson Endowed Chair, Director, Center on Child Abuse and Neglect
David Bard, Ph.D. – Associate Professor, Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Director, Biomedical and Behavioral Methodology Core
Lauren Ethridge, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor, Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics

Scientific staff from LIBR attended an all-day week-long AFNI Bootcamp at the University of Oklahoma Tulsa campus from April 18th-22nd with Dr. Bob Cox and his colleagues in the Scientific and Statistical Computing Core (SSCC) of the National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Program. Participants learned how to process neuroimaging data using the AFNI (Analysis of Functional NeuroImages) software, including topics of alignment and registration of images, single and group subject analyses, regression analysis, region-of-interest analysis, SUMA processing, resting state processing, DTI, InstaCorr and connectivity analysis. 

In our upcoming "Healthy Brains for a Healthy Oklahoma" lecture, Dr. Kyle Simmons will provide parents, teachers and community members with valuable information on the links between physical and mental health in children and adolescents.

​Cost: FREE
Please visit our Facebook page to tell us you're interested in attending the event!

The Healthy Brains for a Healthy Oklahoma lecture series is sponsored by the Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) and the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) group at LIBR.

Our society has a long philosophical and cultural history of separating the body and the mind.  Recent advances in neuroscience have demonstrated that precisely the opposite is true. Cognitive and emotional wellbeing are greatly influenced by a complex interplay among the body’s neural, endocrine, metabolic, and immune systems.  This has important personal and public health implications.  In this lecture, Dr. Simmons will provide an overview of evidence for the links between physical and mental health, with particular attention paid to child and adolescent development.  Key themes will include: (a) how physical activity improves brain health, thereby affecting cognition and emotional wellbeing; (b) how a healthy diet affects brain and body function, and (c) the critical importance of sleep in brain development.

Dr. W. Kyle Simmons completed his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at Emory University, and his postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health. Currently, Dr. Simmons is a tenured Associate Professor at The University of Tulsa and Principal Investigator and Director of the Appetitive and Interoceptive Psychopathology Lab at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa.

**UPDATE** Dr. Tranel will be unable to attend, instead our investigators will provide an update on all of the exciting research underway at LIBR. No CME credit will be available for this lecture.

William K. Warren, Jr.  Frontiers in Neuroscience Conference
Laureate Psychiatric Clinic and Hospital Conference Center- April 12th 2016
 
11:00am - 12:00pm    Registration and Lunch
12:00pm - 1:00pm      Program

Daniel Tranel graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1979, then earned a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Iowa in 1982.  He completed postdoctoral training at Iowa under Drs. Arthur Benton and Antonio Damasio, and joined the faculty in the Department of Neurology in 1986, where he has been ever since.  Tranel currently holds joint appointments as a Professor in the Department of Neurology and the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.  He heads up the Benton Neuropsychology Laboratory, and he is Director of the Neuroscience PhD Program at Iowa.  For the past two years, he has also served as the Associate Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in the Carver College of Medicine.  Dr. Tranel studies the neural basis of higher order cognition and behavior, using the lesion method and functional neuroimaging in human participants. His work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the Office of Naval Research, and the Department of Defense, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, as well as the Kiwanis Foundation and other private foundations. He has published over 300 scholarly research articles, and his clinical and research work has provided new insights into the diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease, and mental health disorders.  

Learning Objectives:

1. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is critical for social conduct and moral behavior.
2. Patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex develop impairments in emotion and decision-making, which in turn contribute to abnormal social behavior and moral reasoning. Ventromedial prefrontal damage incurred early in life is especially deleterious for normal social conduct and moral behavior.
3. Neuropsychological evidence points to intriguing parallels between patients with ventromedial prefrontal damage and individuals with antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy), raising questions about a potential common neurobiological substrate – specifically, dysfunction in ventromedial prefrontal brain systems
   

To register for any of this event, please call 918-494-6490 or email kecochran@saintfrancis.com. Lunch will be provided to registered guests. The William K. Warren Jr. "Frontiers in Neuroscience" Conference Series is free and open to the public.