The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR) hosts the 2015-2016 

ABSTRACT

Cultural neuroscience: Closing the gap in population mental health disparities

Mental health disorders pose a significant global financial burden in treatment annually. A key challenge facing global mental health is to understand the etiology and treatment of mental health disparities, including the mechanisms of population disparities in mental health. Cultural neuroscience is a research field that examines the cultural, environmental and genetic factors that shape psychological and neural processes underlying behavior. Recent advances in cultural neuroscience demonstrate the relevance of culture in modulating brain and behavior. This talk will provide an overview of advances in cultural neuroscience, with discussion of the implications of this research for closing the gap in population mental health disparities.

Bio

Joan Chiao, Ph.D. is the Director of the International Cultural Neuroscience Consortium. She received her BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University and PhD in Psychology from Harvard University. Her research expertise is in social affective and cultural neuroscience. Over the past 10 years, she has examined how culture, race and social status affect the human mind, brain and behavior. She is a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience. She is on the Editorial Board of several journals, including Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Social Neuroscience, Culture and Brain and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. She has received funding from National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Japan Society for Promotion of Science. She was awarded a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science and a SAGE Young Scholar by the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology. She has served as faculty at Northwestern University.

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