Parenting and the Brain

Tufts University Boston, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION: [unreadable] The ?Parenting and the Brain? conference to be held in Boston, Massachusetts in June, 2007 is the third conference in a series of international scientific meetings devoted to the study of maternal and paternal care-giving and its underlying biological substrates. The initial meeting in this series of conferences was held in Bristol, England in 1999 and focused on the ?The Maternal Brain.? In 2003, a second meeting entitled the ?Mothers and Infants Conference? was held in Montreal, Canada. The mission of the upcoming ?Parenting and the Brain? conference is to bring together internationally recognized basic and clinical researchers who use state of the art scientific approaches to examine the role of the central nervous system in both maternal and paternal care-giving and thereby increase our understanding of how the biology of the brain influences mental health. Researchers will discuss variations in parental behavior and responses during biological critical periods associated with raising offspring. A central focus of this meeting will be consideration of underlying mechanisms that regulate adaptations of the brain toward parenting. Translational aspects of parenting will be a second key component of the program. The conference will consider issues related to postpartum mood disorders, such as postpartum depression, anxiety, maternal aggression, as well as insufficient parental bonding to infants in an effort to identify novel linkages between the basic and clinical sciences on these crucial topics and to advance our understanding and treatment of mental health issues. The conference proceedings will be published as an integrated text. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]