Conference on Childhood, Culture, and Neurodevelopment

描述（由申请人提供）：动物和人体研究强调早期生活经历对后期发展的重要性。然而，现有的许多关于早期生活如何影响发育的研究都是建立在单一理论、非综合观点的基础上的。例如，通常情况下，神经生物学家使用动物模型只关注离散压力源对生物体随后的生理变化和发育的影响，而没有考虑在实验室之外也可能影响生理的一些丰富多样的背景因素。同样，人类学家关注个人和社会群体的文化和意义，而不考虑它们对影响发展的神经生物学机制的影响。因此，可以理解的是，生物科学和社会科学可能都没有考虑到相互影响和相互影响人类发展的多种因素，特别是那些碰巧不在各自学科范围内的因素。我们提议召开一次会议，旨在通过研究生命最初几年的早期经历如何有助于恢复力和心理健康，或易受精神病理（如焦虑、抑郁和压力相关疾病）的影响，来填补这一空白。特别是，我们将从神经生物学和跨文化的角度来看待规范的儿童发展，特别是社会建构背景和规范环境如何影响生理、社会和心理发展。会议将汇集来自人类学、神经生物学、认知神经科学、心理学和精神病学等领域的多学科研究人员和学者。通过演讲和圆桌讨论，我们希望吸引对生物学，心理学和文化人类学之间的相互作用感兴趣的学者的不同听众，他们将共同探索文化环境和大脑发育如何相互作用并影响早期生活经验和发展。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Animal and human studies have emphasized the primacy of early life experience on later development. However, much of the existing research on precisely how early life shapes development is founded on studies that rely on mono-theoretical, non-integrated perspectives. Typically, for example, neurobiologists using animal models focus exclusively on the effects of discrete stressors on the subsequent physiological changes and development of the organism, without considering some of the rich and varied contextual factors at play outside the laboratory that may also influence physiology. Likewise, anthropologists focus on culture and meanings with respect to the individual and social group, without considering their impact on neurobiological mechanisms that influence development. As a result, both the biological and social sciences may have, understandably, failed to consider multiple factors that both interact with each other and mutually influence human development, particularly those factors that happen to fall outside their respective disciplines. We propose a conference that seeks to fill this gap by examining how early experiences in the first several years of life contribute to resilience and mental well being or vulnerability to psychopathologies, such as anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders. In particular, we will look at normative child development from combined neurobiological and cross-cultural perspectives, especially at how socially constructed contexts and normative environments impact physiological, social, and psychological development. The conference will bring together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and scholars, representing the fields of anthropology, neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and psychiatry. Through presentations and roundtable discussions we want to involve a diverse audience of scholars interested in interactions between biology, psychology, and cultural anthropology that will collectively explore how cultural settings and brain development interact and affect early life experience and development.