|
 Date:
March 2, 2007
Time: Noon to 1:00
Title: Topic: Amygdala, autism
Speaker:
David Amaral, PhD
University of California, Davis
Where: Waisman
Conference Center
Room T216, Second Floor, North Tower
About the Talk:
The amygdala is a brain region that has been implicated in the mediation of social behavior and has also been discussed as a possible substrate for autism. I will review recent magnetic resonance imaging and postmortem histological studies that indeed indicate that the amygdala is pathological in autism. But, what portion of the behavioral symptoms of autism does the amygdala pathology produce? To answer this question we turn to studies of the rhesus monkey to define a role for the primate amygdala. These studies are used as evidence for the possible contribution of the amygdala to autistic behavior.
About Terrence R. Dolan:
Terrence R. Dolan received his Ph.D. in 1966 in an interdisciplinary program
of psychology, physiology, and anatomy at the University of Texas, Austin. He
was a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Neurosciences, Indiana University
from 1966-68 and stayed on as a research associate for another two years. From
1970-1976, Dolan was affiliated with the Loyola University of Chicago. He held
positions as professor of psychology and assistant dean of the Graduate School
and also served as director of Loyola's Parmly Research Institute. Prior to
beginning his tenure at the Waisman Center, he spent a year as a Von Humboldt
fellow and directed the National Science Foundation's Sensory Physiology and
Perception Program in Washington, D.C. Dolan was appointed director of the
Waisman Center on May 24, 1982. A professor in the Departments of Neurology and
Psychology, he made many lasting contributions to the Waisman Center during the
next two decades. He broadened the center's research programs in the behavioral
sciences, most notably in the areas of aging, sensory and perceptual processes,
and speech and language sciences; he expanded the center's research into
several new areas of science, including gene therapy and stem cell biology; and
he facilitated partnerships between the Waisman Center and the public and
private sectors. He also guided the planning and development of a 70,000
square-foot addition, which houses a highly specialized biomanufacturing
facility, a state-of-the-art functional brain imaging center, research floors
dedicated to stem cell and gene therapy research, and remodelled and new space
for the center's early childhood programs. Dolan retired from UW-Madison on May
24, 2002. He and his wife Mary Ann have four children and six grand children.
For Further Information: Contact Teresa Palumbo at 263-5837 or
palumbo@waisman.wisc.edu
The Waisman Center Seminar
Series is partially funded by the
Friends of the Waisman Center and NIH grant
P30 HD003352.
|
To download an Adobe Acrobat file of the entire seminar series schedule
click here. (pdf schedule coming soon!) |
|
