学　术

　　人力资源部教师发展中心开展“学者论坛”系列学术活动，定期邀请与我校教师研究领域相关的知名学者，以专题报告的形式与师生分享和研讨最新研究动态和成果，旨在为教师提供学术探讨和交流的平台，开拓教师学术视野。第14期论坛安排如下，欢迎广大师生参加。

　　时　间：11月11日（周三）15:00

　　地　点：清水河图书馆视听阅览室（二楼E区B216）光影厅

　　主　题：Development of new treatments for social dysfunction——Autism and Social Anxiety

　　主讲人：悉尼大学 Adam Guastella博士

　　主持人：Keith Kendrick

　　主办单位：人力资源部教师发展中心

　　承办单位：信息医学研究中心

　　内容简介：

　　Over the last two decades there have been significant advances in understanding the neurobiology of social behaviour. These advances have led to opportunities to advance new mechanisms and treatments for social problems, including those relating to autism and social anxiety. This talk summarises new evidence for novel therapeutics, including oxytocin-based therapies, to treat social problems and discusses a need for close collaboration with multiple pharmacology, engineering, and clinical fields to advance this scientific field.  

　　主讲人简介：

　　Associate Professor Adam Guastella is a Clinical Psychologist and Principle Research Fellow at the Brain & Mind Research Institute. His primary interest is in developing novel treatments to improve social functioning in young patients with mental health problems. This research has led him to study (theory of mind, social cognition and social anxiety in patients presenting with a range of mental illnesses (anxiety, autism, psychosis, substance dependence). It also led expansion into psychopharmacology and psychophysiology, both of which he manages related laboratories as part of this research.

　　His research may take the form of cognitive-experimental investigations aimed at understanding how biology can interact with psychological processes to cause, maintain and recover from mental health problems. Alternatively, it may take the form of developing new interventions to be integrated and evaluated in our community treatment clinics. His research is internationally recognised in two areas of research: Oxytocin improves social-communication processes in humans: Assoc Prof. Guastella initiated a program of research that showed the powerful enhancing effects of oxytocin administration on face-perception and the cognitive processing of social-stimuli in humans. This research showed that oxytocin administration increases gaze to the eye-region of human faces and enhances processing of positive social information. Associate Prof. Guastella was also one of the first to show that oxytocin enhances emotion understanding in young people with autism. Dr Guastella is currently evaluating whether oxytocin can be used to treat a range of mental health problems that are primarily associated with a difficulty in developing social-relationships. This research advances our basic understanding for evolutionary and biosocial theories of bonding and attachment in humans and may lead an exciting new treatment approach for mental health problems. D-Cycloserine (DCS) facilitates fear-extinction in humans: Dr Guastella conducted some of the first clinical treatment trials of medications that are thought to facilitate learning to overcome fear in humans. Consisting of both experimental investigation of fear-extinction in humans and large clinical treatment trials for phobia, social anxiety, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, these trials have shown that the administration of a simple, low-cost antibiotic before psychological therapy enhances treatment outcomes for anxiety. This has the potential to revolutionize how mental health professionals treat anxiety disorders in the community.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　人力资源部教师发展中心

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　2015年11月9日