Promoting an academic conference calls for a multipronged approach. Here are some examples of posts I created to tease some of the presentations on the programs of conferences sponsored by Kids Brain Health Network (KBHN). Medical scientists are a busy crowd; understandably, they like to know what they could expect to learn from a conference before deciding to attend. In other words, this content was designed to help move them from mere awareness of the event to a motivation to attend.
A nice bonus is that these articles — unlike many promotional materials — contain some evergreen ideas that continue to interest KBHN’s audiences even though the conferences are long past.
Dr. Brian Goldman to Host KBHN’s 2020 Conference
When participants log into Kids Brain Health Network’s first-ever virtual conference in November, they’ll hear a familiar voice: that of Dr. Brian Goldman, host of White Coat, Black Art, the CBC’s long-running, popular radio series about the world of medicine.
Besides being one of Canada’s top medical-science communicators, Dr. Goldman is also a veteran physician, a healthcare-quality advocate and the adopted father of a teenager living with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). For these reasons, he’s a logical fit for emceeing the event.
Goldman will also be leading a Q&A session about what it is like to parent a child with FASD. “The key thing that parents — and teachers — need to know can be summed up in the phrase: ‘Can’t, not won’t,’” he says. He explains that the disorder causes behavioural symptoms that adults often attribute to a “bad attitude” rather than prenatal alcohol exposure.
He’d like everyone to know that FASD is common, probably even more common than autism. More importantly, both conditions deserve attention, support and detection. “It can be hard at times to make a diagnosis,” Goldman says. “For my family, it took a long time to know what was going on.”
With the right support, kids with FASD have a better chance of avoiding complications such as depression, substance abuse or involvement with the criminal justice system. “Those who make it into their 30s with few of those secondary effects often do quite well,” Goldman says. “That’s what my partner Tamara and I are hoping for.”
Goldman, who has always been curious about the puzzles of neurology, is looking forward to hearing about recent projects related to other neurodevelopmental and learning disabilities as well — particularly investigations into their prevalence. “A lot of these conditions are rare, but some are not,” he says. “And when you add them all up, they affect a lot of families. If they speak with one voice, they can be a powerful influence for more research.”
As each day of the conference draws to a close, Goldman will summarize the discussions. He says that part of what helps him communicate clearly about science and healthcare — whether at an event where patients and families are present, in writing or on the air — is imagining what it would be like to be someone without a medical background. “It’s important to empathize with your audience,” he says.
He also recommends focusing upon clarity as a goal instead of sounding smart, which is often the unconscious goal in a clinical or research environment.
KBHN aims to help the next generation of researchers to understand the importance of engaging with individuals and families affected by neurodevelopmental disabilities. This often requires communicating clearly about complex medical topics. “It’s not an easy skill, and it doesn’t trivialize the information,” Goldman says. “It’s still smart, just in a different way.”
Shaping a Healthy Brain from the Start
DOHaD 2022 World Congress events will offer a deep dive into the link between early brain development and mental health
Even though most of us don’t remember the first few years of life, they matter immensely. That’s because they shape the architecture of the developing brain and influence lifelong well-being. For example, early experiences affect a child’s future risk of mental-health disorders such as depression or anxiety. The good news is that early childhood presents a unique opportunity to intervene in ways that could set someone on a different, healthier path.
One of the researchers who is laying the groundwork to make this happen is Dr. Vikram Patel, the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School. His internationally lauded work looks at ways of preventing/treating mental illness — starting in early childhood — in low- and middle-income countries. He’s also interested in finding ways to support people with autism spectrum disorder in these low-resource settings.
Compared to other children, those who are living with autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDDs) are more likely to struggle with mental-health challenges. That’s one of many reasons why KBHN has awarded its annual Fraser Mustard Lecture to Patel. He will be delivering it on August 29 at DOHaD World Congress 2022 in Vancouver.
Congress attendees who are interested in solutions for alleviating the burden of poor mental health should also not miss the KBHN-sponsored symposium “Early Brain Development and the Origins of Infant Mental Health,” also on August 29.
Among the presenters will be Dr. Judy Cameron, who has been conducting research in Alberta with young children who are using social services and living in stressful environments. For a recent study, she followed preschoolers for 12 months to see which aspects of their lives would predict developmental outcomes. “The overwhelming mediator was poor sleep,” she says. “Seventy-seven per cent of the children were not getting adequate sleep… and this could lead to problems with cognitive and social-emotional development. It’s a huge number: in no way did we expect that.”
Cameron points out that social-emotional skills help prevent mental-health problems down the road. Fortunately, “sleep is something you can do something about,” she adds. In fact, she has co-developed parenting resources to help children get all the shut-eye they need to feel and do their best. Similarly, KBHN-funded researchers — who are also aware of the crucial importance of sleep — are developing a web-based intervention for families of children with NDDs.
The symposium will also feature the work of Dr. Sheri Madigan, who will speak about the effect of caregiver sensitivity on development. Finally, Dr. Michael Meaney will discuss how interactions between “nature” and “nurture” can lead to childhood depression and anxiety.
Photos courtesy of Charles from Pixabay and Nappy on Unsplash.
Putting Artificial Intelligence to Work for Families
Symposium to showcase how researchers are harnessing AI to prevent and manage childhood neurodevelopmental disabilities
For promoting the health of the human brain, one of the promising tools at our disposal is — fittingly enough — the artificial brain. In a KBHN-sponsored symposium called “Applications of Artificial Intelligence to Improve Health Outcomes Across the Lifespan” at DOHaD World Congress 2022 in Vancouver, researchers in the field will discuss some of the ways that AI can improve outcomes for children with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDDs) and their families.
If the term “AI” brings human-like robots to mind, the reality fits more seamlessly into everyday life. For example, KBHN researchers Drs. Elina Birmingham and Siamak Arzanpour will share their experiences developing “smart” earphones that can selectively filter out whatever noises the user doesn’t want to hear. Their goal is to allow children with sound sensitivity — a common symptom of autism and other NDDs — to participate more fully in school and recreational activities without getting subjected to the sounds they find distressing (e.g. sirens; scraping chairs). The device relies on a machine-learning algorithm to detect the noises it needs to remove from the soundscape.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, Dr. Régine Steegers-Theunissen and her team at Erasmus Medical Center have created an embryonic brain atlas that uses a deep learning approach to extract relevant data from three-dimensional ultrasound images. Her team has used it to examine the impact of folic acid on the growth of the cerebellum. “Our results support how important it is to take folic acid during pregnancy,” she says. “It’s already impacting brain development in the first trimester.”
Finally, Dr. François Bolduc of the University of Alberta will describe his efforts to create an AI-powered chatbot that finds sound medical advice and the most valuable available interventions for people with NDDs and their families. Much like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, it will respond to text or voice inputs from users. Unlike these chatbots, it will focus upon information from reliable sources.
For everything it can do, AI has limits: families will always need a human touch as well. “People are not robots,” emphasizes Steegers-Theunissen. “Even though we are developing robots, it is also important, in our opinion, to have face-to-face contact… In a blended approach, they complement each other.”
