2012 Brain Awareness Night Presentations

The theme of the evening will be "New Initiatives for Optimizing Brain Development in Children."

The Urban Child Institute and the UT Health Science Center's Neuroscience Institute will be presenting Brain Awareness Night on Thursday, March 22 of 2012.

Attendance is free! Refreshments will be served from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM. The presentations will be from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.

Dr. Daniel Goldowitz, Ph.D, is a Medical Genetics Professor at the University of Columbia's Centre of Medicine and Thereapeutics. He will present "The Malleable Brain: In Good Times and Bad." During early development of the fetus and baby, special events at critical times occur to form a functioning brain. Environmental influences are very significant during this period, for better or worse. This talk will discuss how these factors play out in an organ that is highly plastic.

Dr. Clyde Hertzman, MD, is the director at the University of Columbia's Human Early Learning Partnership. He will be presenting "A New Method for Measuring Social and Cognitive Development Leads to New Initiatives for Child Development." Although parents want to do what's best for their children, high-quality nurturance is hard for families to provide on their own and requires help from society at all levels. Accordingly, Dr. Hertzman has developed a tool that provides information on physical, social-emotional and language-cognitive development of children across whole populations as they transition from pre-school to school. Results have led to dozens of new initiatives for early childhood development. This talk will discuss this new tool and implementation of new intitives and pilot programs at local and national levels.

Professional training hours (CEUs) will be provided by the UT Neuroscience Institute. For more information, contact Dr. Paul Herron at 901-448-5824. Space is limited!

Please pre-register with Susan M. Day by phone (901-385-4242) or email. Parking is free and secure in the Visitor Parking Lot at The Urban Child Institute. RSVP'd guests will receive a tote bag filled with delightful items that will surely bring positive affirmation signals to the cerebral cortex and limbic system!