Thursday
October 17, 3pm
HSC 4E20

Geoffrey B. Hall PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour
McMaster University
"Stressing the point: Evidence from neuroimaging of altered brain circuitry in Major Depressive Disorder."

Dear MiNDS students & faculty,

I am pleased to invite you to attend the MiNDS Colloquium TODAY Thursday October 17th at 3:00 in HSC 4E20. Bring your coffee cup for coffee and cookies before the talk at 2:45.

Dr Geoffrey Hall is an Associate Professor with the Deapartment of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University.

Dr. Hall's interests broadly encompass the neurological foundations of human emotion and cognition, with a particular focus on neurodevelopmental disorders and psychopathology. Central to this work is the development of novel experimental and theoretical tools that lead to a deeper understanding of how emotion and cognition are mapped onto the developing brain, and how underlying neural systems aggregate into functionally connected networks. His research places an emphasis on the development of strong validated behavioural paradigms and draws upon a range of imaging methodologies, including functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, MRI Cortical Thickness & Volumetry, Positron Tomography and Electroencephalography.

Today's talk will discuss how Neuropathological models have posited that Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) results from disruptions in neuroanatomical structures involved in regulation of mood and stress response. However, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the development of major depressive disorder may differ depending on the age of first onset and as a function of factors that contribute to risk. Dr Hall's lab has conducted a series of studies to explore the functional and structural abnormalities within cortico-thalamic / striatal-limbic brain circuitry in MDD and to determine whether there are particular neurofunctional outcomes that are contingent on risk, age of first onset and illness burden. A review will be presented summarizing and integrating our recent fMRI work in MDD on recollection memory function, reward processing, ruminative thought suppression and examining the results from studies involving magnetic resonance spectroscopy, structural cortical thickness analyses and Diffusion Tensor white matter tractography.

We look forward to seeing you all at the talk today.

Regards

Kathy

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Kathryn M Murphy PhD

Professor and Director MiNDS Graduate Program

Dept of Psychology Neuroscience & Behaviour

McMaster University

1280 Main St W

Hamilton ON L8S 4K1