Social Cognition, Autism and the Human Brain
- Speaker
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Ralph Adolphs, Ph.D.Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Biology, California Institute of Technology
The 2024 lecture series in neuroscience and autism science is “The Social Brain.” Social interactions dominate our world and experiences. Human society itself results from large-scale social behavior. Such behaviors are also ubiquitous in other animals, from cooperation in nonhuman primates to the courtship rituals of flies. In these lectures, scientists will discuss how these social behaviors likely arise through neurobiological mechanisms shared across species.
2024 Lecture Series Themes
Mathematics and Computer Science: Machine Learning in the Natural Sciences
Presidential Lectures are free public colloquia centered on four main themes: Biology, Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science, and Neuroscience and Autism Science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are intended to foster discourse and drive discovery among the broader NYC-area research community. We invite those interested in the topic to join us for this weekly lecture series.
We regularly infer the mental states and traits of others simply by watching them, an ability that may distinguish our cognition from that of other animals. This ability also manifests differently from person to person, such as those with autism spectrum disorder. How should psychology and neuroscience study this vast topic?
In this Presidential Lecture, Ralph Adolphs will discuss research that uses eye tracking, neuroimaging and direct brain recordings — some from the same participants. Adolphs will show how brain networks involving the amygdala play a key role in how we make social judgments from faces. This work is based on studies of rare patients with selective amygdala lesions and unique single-neuron recordings from the amygdala in neurosurgical patients — including some with autism. Understanding the social brain will require integrating data from very different levels, with utmost attention to the reliability and generalizability of the findings.