Brain Awareness Teacher Workshop 2009

On March 7, 2009, teachers from Jackson County attended the Brain Awareness Workshop at Southern Oregon University. Teachers listened to a presentation given by Dr. Garet Lavis highlighting his research with mice, their social interactions and the implications this has with respect to autism in humans.

AHEC-SW would like to thank our partner and host, the OHSU School of Nursing at SOU, for helping us to make this event more accessible for teachers in southern Oregon.

Topic Summary:

Mouse etiquette: What does a mouse's response to social situations tell us about autism?

How can your genes affect what you get out of a social interaction? We are studying this problem in mice, where we can determine how much genes contribute to an individual's social behavior. Not surprisingly, we have discovered that mice find their social interactions rewarding. More notably, we have found that differences in social interactions are associated with different kinds of vocalizations, all much higher in frequency than humans can hear. Most surprisingly, we have found that mice exhibit a form of empathy, or the ability to feel the distress of another individual mouse. To understand how these social bonds emerge, we are just beginning to examine the responses of the brain to different social stimuli. These studies will lead to greater insight into risk-factors for adolescent substance abuse and human social impairments, such as autism.

Speaker: Garet Lahvis, PhD, Assistant Professor, OHSU Department of Behavioral Neuroscience

More information about Dr. Lahvis can be found on the OHSU website:
http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/departments/basic-science-departments/behn/people/lahvis.cfm