BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//132.216.98.100//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.4// BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20251030T144500EDT-3177RpKK1E@132.216.98.100 DTSTAMP:20251030T184500Z DESCRIPTION:What is Health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design\n \nBy Peter Sterling\, PhD\, Professor of Neuroscience\, Department of Neur oscience\, Perelman School of Medicine\, University of Pennsylvania\n\nZoo m registration\n\nABSTRACT:\n\nHuman design is constrained by natural sele ction to maximize performance for a given energy cost. The brain predicts what will be needed and controls metabolism\, physiology\, and behavior to deliver just enough\, just in time. Preventing errors (allostasis)\, rath er than correcting them (homeostasis)\, saves energy.\n\nOur ancestors sur vived in challenging environments by learning across the lifespan. Our bra in guides learning with an optimal rule that rewards each positive surpris e with a pulse of dopamine\, which we experience as a pulse of satisfactio n. But we now obtain food and comfort without surprise and are thus depriv ed of frequent dopamine pulses. Lacking them\, we grow restless and are dr iven to seek new sources. One route is through consumption: more food and drugs that produce great surges of dopamine. But the surprise that follows more can only be still more. Moreover\, our systems adapt to more by redu cing their sensitivities\, which drives them into damaging spirals.\n\nSta ndard medicine promotes drugs to treat addictions by blocking the reward c ircuit. But strategies\, to prevent satisfaction\, cannot work. Standard e conomics promotes “growth” for more “jobs”. But “jobs” devoid of long-term challenge are what now drive us to despair. To restore mental and bodily health\, we must re-expand opportunities for small satisfactions via chall enging activities and thereby rescue the reward system from its pathologic al regime.\n\n \n\nBIO:\n\nPeter Sterling was born in New York City in 194 0 and reared in a northern suburb. He attended Cornell University (1958-61 )\, then a year in medical school (New York University)\, then earned a Ph D in neurobiology (1966) at Western Reserve University in Cleveland\, Ohio . Sterling next moved to Harvard Medical School (1966-69) for postdoctoral study and finally reached the University of Pennsylvania where he establi shed his own laboratory to study fine scale neural circuits (1969-2009). S ince closing his laboratory\, Professor Sterling has wintered on a small f arm in the mountains of western Panama (November-May) and summered in an a gricultural region in the Connecticut River valley in western Massachusett s.\n\nBeyond the laboratory\, Sterling has been a social activist\, for ex ample\, participating in the Freedom Rides (1961)\, and visiting various i ndigenous communities in Central America. These experiences led him to exp lore the neural mechanisms by which racism and social inequality impair he alth. He has written two books\, Principles of Neural Design (2015\, with Simon Laughlin) and What is Health? (2020). The origins of his social acti vism are described in reflection\, 'Why I Joined the Freedom Rides' in Cur rent Biology (June 2021). Most recently he published with Michael Platt\, 'Why Deaths of Despair Are Increasing in the US and Not Other Industrial N ations—Insights from Neuroscience and Anthropology (JAMA Psychiatry. doi:1 0.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.4209 Published online February 2\, 2022).\n DTSTART:20220414T190000Z DTEND:20220414T210000Z SUMMARY:Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry & the Culture\, Min d and Brain Speaker Series URL:/psychiatry/channels/event/division-social-and-tra nscultural-psychiatry-culture-mind-and-brain-speaker-series-338614 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR