Hosted by the Culture, Mind & Brain Program

Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry and the Healthy Brains Healthy Lives Initiative

The goal is for students and researchers of neuroscience, psychiatry, anthropology and other areas related to mental health to discuss bodies of research and work in progress (experimental and theoretical) that relate to neuroscience and society, and mind, brain and culture. We will discuss topics such as how to design multidisciplinary methodologies that integrate social, ethical and cultural contexts into experimental studies of brain structure, function and development; we will analyze the potentials and limits of brain data for health and social policy; and critically assess translations of brain data into popular science pieces.

For more information, please samuel.veissiere [at] mcgill.ca (e-mail Professor Samuel Veissière).

Real-Time Social Cognition

Divergent Mentalizing and Preserved Mirroring in Children with Autism

Presenter: Veronika Dudarev, Ph.D.

Date: November 7, 2024

Time: 3:00 - 5:00pm EST

Hybrid event
In-person location: Ludmer 138
Registration required for remote attendance


Life Beyond the Blind Spot

Presenter: Evan Thompson, Ph.D.

Date: October 31, 2024

Time: 3:00 - 5:00pm EST

Hybrid event
In-Person Room 138, Ludmer Building


2024

DateSpeakerTitle
November 7Veronika Dudarev, Ph.D.Real-Time Social Cognition: Divergent Mentalizing and Preserved Mirroring in Children with Autism
October 31Evan Thompson, Ph.D.Life Beyond the Blind Spot
February 15Nicolas Langlitz, M.D., Ph.D.Psychedelic Therapy as Form of Life
January 18Ira Helderman, Ph.D., L.P.CThe DSM, Meditation Sickness, and other “Religious or Spiritual Problems”

2023

DateSpeakerTitle
March 16Junko Kitanaka, PhDAgainst new healthism: the rise of Tojisha movement and the debates around the prevention of dementia in Japan
February 16Ivan Kroupin, PhDFrom rich(er) to lean(er) systems: towards a formal theory of cultural-cognitive variation across history and geography

2022

DateSpeakerTitle
April 14Peter Sterling, PhD
March 10Roy Richard Grinker, PhD
March 3Kathryn Tabb, PhD
February 10Somogy Varga, PhD & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen, PhDObsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Recalcitrant Emotion: Relocating the Seat of Irrationality
January 20Marga Vicedo, PhD

2021

DateSpeakerTitle
November 11Igor Grossmann, PhDFolk epistemology of (ir)rationality
March 18Tara Mahfoud, PhD
March 11Samuel Veissière, PhD
January 21Daniel D. Hutto, BA, MPhil, DPhil
January 7Dietrich Stout, PhD

2020

DateSpeakerTitle
November 5Georg Northoff, MD, PhD
October 29Shinobu Kitayama, PhD
October 1Carol M. Worthman, PhD
September 24Laurence Kirmayer, MD
January 23Kenneth J. Zucker, PhD, CPsychChildren and Adolescents with Gender Dysphoria: Some Contemporary Research and Clinical Issues

2019

DateSpeakerTitle
November 28Suze Berkhout, MD, PhD, FRCPCGrappling with Cure/Harm: Feminist STS, Critical Disability Studies Meets Placebo and Nocebo Studies
November 7David Dupuis, PhDThe Socialization of Hallucinations: Cultural Priors, Social Interactions and Contextual Factors in the use of Ayahuasca
April 25Laura Otis, PhDThe Insidious Work of Emotion Metaphors
March 28Jacqueline Sullivan, PhDCoordinating Scientific Perspectives in Experimental Contexts: Lessons from Translational Cognitive Neuroscience and the RDOC Project
March 14Dietrich Stout, PhDHuman Evolutionary Neuroscience: Life in the Technological Niche
February 28Rob Boddice, MA, PhD, FRHistSBiocultural History and the Turn to Experience
January 31Bican Polat, Ph.D.Cerebralizing Attachment: How Have Parent-Child Relationships Come to be Explained as Brain Facts?

2018

DateSpeakerTitle
December 6Elizabeth Pienkos, Psy.D.Existential Orientations and Schizophrenia: Personhood, Pathology, and Culture
October 25Dr. Jesse ProudfootTraumatic Landscapes: Two Geographies of Addiction
August 9Professor Maria KozhevnikovThe Effect of Vajrayana Buddhism on Enhancing Human Cognition
May 4Professor Fernando VidalPhenomenology of the Locked-in Syndrome
March 15Dr. Ana Gómez-CarrilloOperationalizing Multi-level Loops in Affective Disorders
February 15Professor Samuel Veissière & Moriah StendelHypernatural Monitoring: A Social Rehearsal Account of Smartphone Addiction
February 8Michael LifshitzSuggestion as a mechanism in contemplative practice
January 25Jay Olson, PhD CandidatePlacebo machines, the culture of neuroscience, and the power of suggestion
January 11Maxwell Ramstead & Vincent LalibertéHow Can the Social Sciences Contribute to the Neurosciences?