BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//events.la.psu.edu//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20201101T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20200308T020000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:5635-a02690e29ea1af8ef339c55c144d637b@events.la.psu.edu DTSTAMP:20261001T111409Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20200429T110000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20200429T120000 SUMMARY:Expanding Empathy Speaker Series: Abigail Marsh DESCRIPTION:\nTitle: \;The Altruistic Brain\n\nAbstract: \;Every year in the United States\, over 100 Americans donate one of their own kidneys to a stranger. Dozens more receive the Carnegie Medal for herois m for rescuing strangers from danger. The question is: why? What drives people to take risks and make sacrifices to help strangers? Our work inc ludes behavioral and brain imaging research aimed at understanding the r oots of extraordinary altruism. Results of our research suggest that ext raordinary altruists possess neural and cognitive characteristics that p redispose them to high levels of care and compassion. In terms of their brain structure and function\, they look the opposite of highly callous individuals (such as psychopaths). They also show unusually strong conne ctions between brain areas that support parental care. These variations may increase altruists&rsquo\; capacity for empathic responding and bias them toward protective responses to others&rsquo\; distress. Together\, these results suggest that extraordinary altruism may result from varia tions in established neural and cognitive phenomena that support social and emotional responsiveness. They also suggest that human altruism may be subserved by ancient neural systems that support parental and allopar ental care.\n\nBio:\n\nI am an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at Georgetown University. I received my PhD in Social Psychology from Harvard Universi ty in 2004 and afterward conducted post-doctoral research at the Nationa l Institute of Mental Health until 2008.\n\nI direct the Laboratory on S ocial &\; Affective Neuroscience\, research in which is aimed at addr essing questions that include: How do people understand what others thin k and feel? What drives us to help other people? What prevents us from h arming them? We tackle these questions using multiple approaches that in clude functional and structural brain imaging in adolescents and adults from both typical and special populations\, as well as behavioral\, cogn itive\, genetic\, and pharmacological methods. Current research projects include behavioral and brain imaging investigations of altruism among l iving altruistic kidney donors and stem cell donors\, and behavioral and brain imaging investigations of the roots of conduct problems in childr en and adolescents.\n\nMy research has been funded by the National Insti tutes of Health\, the National Science Foundation\, and the John Templet on Foundation and has received awards that include the Wyatt Memorial Aw ard for translational research from the National Institute of Mental Hea lth and the Cozzarelli Prize for scientific excellence and originality f rom the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.\n\nThe Expandin g Empathy Speaker Series is sponsored by the Moral Agency and Moral Deve lopment Initiative with support from the College of the Liberal Arts\, t he College of Health and Human Development\, the Department of Psycholog y\, the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center\, and the Univers ity Libraries. Daryl Cameron \;convenes the Moral Agency and Moral D evelopment Initiative.\n\nFor more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/ev ent/expanding_empathy_speaker_series_abigail_marsh/ X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

Title:  The Altruistic Brain

Abstract: Every year in the U nited States, over 100 Americans donate one of their own kidneys to a st ranger. Dozens more receive the Carnegie Medal for heroism for rescuing strangers from danger. The question is: why? What drives people to take risks and make sacrifices to help strangers? Our work includes behaviora l and brain imaging research aimed at understanding the roots of extraor dinary altruism. Results of our research suggest that extraordinary altr uists possess neural and cognitive characteristics that predispose them to high levels of care and compassion. In terms of their brain structure and function, they look the opposite of highly callous individuals (suc h as psychopaths). They also show unusually strong connections between b rain areas that support parental care. These variations may increase alt ruists’ capacity for empathic responding and bias them toward prot ective responses to others’ distress. Together, these results sugg est that extraordinary altruism may result from variations in establishe d neural and cognitive phenomena that support social and emotional respo nsiveness. They also suggest that human altruism may be subserved by anc ient neural systems that support parental and alloparental care.

< b>Bio:

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Psycho logy and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at Georgetown Univer sity. I received my PhD in Social Psychology from Harvard University in 2004 and afterward conducted post-doctoral research at the National Inst itute of Mental Health until 2008.

I direct the Laboratory on Soci al & Affective Neuroscience, research in which is aimed at addressin g questions that include: How do people understand what others think and feel? What drives us to help other people? What prevents us from harmin g them? We tackle these questions using multiple approaches that include functional and structural brain imaging in adolescents and adults from both typical and special populations, as well as behavioral, cognitive, genetic, and pharmacological methods. Current research projects include behavioral and brain imaging investigations of altruism among living alt ruistic kidney donors and stem cell donors, and behavioral and brain ima ging investigations of the roots of conduct problems in children and ado lescents.

My research has been funded by the National Institutes o f Health, the National Science Foundation, and the John Templeton Founda tion and has received awards that include the Wyatt Memorial Award for t ranslational research from the National Institute of Mental Health and t he Cozzarelli Prize for scientific excellence and originality from the P roceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Expanding Empa thy Speaker Series is sponsored by the Moral Agency and Moral Developmen t Initiative with support from the College of the Liberal Arts, the Coll ege of Health and Human Development, the Department of Psychology, the E dna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, and the University Librar ies. Daryl Cameron convenes the Moral Agency and Moral Development Initiative.

For more details: https://events.la. psu.edu/event/expanding_empathy_speaker_series_abigail_marsh/

URL:https://bit.ly/EE2020Marsh END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR