Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, March 20, 2006 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Larry Cahill

"His Brain, Her Brain"

ABSTRACT -- In a comprehensive report issued in 2001, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that "Sex matters. Sex, that is, being male or female, is an important basic human variable that should be considered when designing and analyzing studies in all areas and at all levels of biomedical and health-related research." Extensive research involving both animal and human subjects confirms this conclusion as regards the brain. Recent work is showing that sex and cerebral hemisphere constitute twin, interacting influences on brain mechanisms of emotion and memory that can no longer be ignored. This talk will address why "sex matters" to brain research, with particular reference to studies of emotion and memory.

SPEAKER -- Dr. Larry Cahill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and a Fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). He received his Ph.D. from UCI in 1990 and, after spending two years in Germany using imaging techniques to explore learning and memory in gerbils, returned to teach and continue his studies. His current research focuses on neural mechanisms of emotionally influenced memory.