2015 Program

In 2015, the On the Shoulders of Giants Scientific Symposium featured Thomas Insel, MD, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and recipient of the Child Mind Institute’s 2015 Distinguished Scientist Award for his leadership during a revolution in our understanding of the brain and its function. The symposium highlighted Dr. Insel’s work as well as his influence on subsequent generations of researchers, including Conor Liston, MD, PhD, of Weill Cornell Medical College and Nim Tottenham, PhD, of Columbia University.

Thomas R. Insel, MD
Presentation: “Transforming Services Through Science: Recent advances that can transform how we approach the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders”

Conor Liston, MD, PhD
Presentation: “Biomarkers for Diagnosing Depression: How large neuroimaging datasets can be used to identify types of depression and provide new frameworks for diagnosing mental illness”

Nim Tottenham, PhD
Presentation: “The Impact of Caregiving on Early Brain Development: How the amygdala-prefrontal cortex develops throughout childhood and adolescence, and how deprivation of caregiving early in life is associated with increased risk of atypical development of this circuitry”

Harold Koplewicz, MD, Child Mind Institute president, Michael Milham, MD, PhD, and Tomas Paus, MD, PhD, delivered opening and closing remarks.