Hello!

It my pleasure to announce our third Hebb Lecturer of the year: Professor Naomi I. Eisenberger from the University of California, Los Angeles. In her research, Dr. Eisenberger employs a variety of approaches including behavioral, physiological and neuroimaging techniques to understand our fundamental need to belong and the link between social relationships and emotional and physical well-being. Her innovative and interdisciplinary approach to research has earned her numerous awards including the Janet Taylor Spence Award for transformative early career contributions and prestigious early-career award from the American Psychological Association. The main talk (title and abstract below) will take place at 3:30pm on Friday, November 21st, in the Stewart Biology Building, room S1/3.

Social pain and pleasure: The social neuroscience of rejection and connection Some of the best and worst experiences of life involve the making and breaking of social bonds. In order to better understand the profound experiences associated with social connection and rejection, we have looked to the brain to investigate the basic neural systems that might underlie these complex socioemotional experiences. In this talk, I will explore whether ‘social pain,’ the feelings resulting from social rejection or loss, rely on neural regions that support physical pain processing. I will also examine whether ‘social pleasure,’ specifically the positive feelings associated with social connection, rely on neural regions and neurochemical substrates (opioids) that support reward-related processing. Together, the studies presented begin to shed light on the neural systems that work to promote social connection and ultimately survival.

IN ADDITION to the afternoon presentation, there will be a morning session--open to all--during which Dr. Eisenberger will be discussing some of her other research interests. The morning session will take place from 10:30am-12pm in S2/2.

Finally, graduate students who are interested in going to lunch with Dr. Eisenberger should contact Jonas Nitschke at: jonas.nitschke@mail.mcgill.ca.

We hope to see you there!

Jennifer A. Bartz, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Psychology McGill University 1205 Docteur Penfield Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1 jennifer.bartz@mcgill.ca 514-398-7626 (t) 514-398-4896 (f)