Brain to Society: Decision and Behavior Seminar Series with Dr. Guillaume Dumas
Computational Psychiatry Across Scales: From Genes in Evolution to Brains in Interaction
Dr. Guillaume Dumas
Dr. Guillaume Dumas is a neuroscientist with a transdisciplinary background in theoretical physics, systems engineering, and cognitive science. He investigates the neurobiology of social cognition through the lens of complex systems theory and computational methods. His scientific interests connect with biomedical research, specifically in psychiatry which requires integrating biological, psychological, and social dimensions of the human mind.
About the presentation
The interdisciplinary endeavour of cognitive science has been encompassing the study of many scales in both space, time, and fields. This talk will illustrate how building “computational ladders” between scales provides alternative heuristics to understand social cognition in health and disease. We will start by the interactive turn taken recently by social neuroscience, discussing how the study of human-human and human-machine interaction demonstrate how low-level sensorimotor coordination with others not only shapes our individual mind but also how we infer high-level intentions and humanness attribution to them. We will finish with recent analyses of the phylogeny of the primate nervous system, including archaic hominids such as Neanderthal and Denisovan, and discuss how genetics at evolutionary time scale questions the singularity of the human brain and the emergence of social skills.
Panel Discussion: A multi-disciplinary panel will follow the presentation to advance convergence science on the multiscale mechanisms of dopamine underlying the behavioral response to experience and environmental variations over the lifecourse. Insights for behavioral change and ecosystem transformation at scale for lifelong wellness and resilience will be discussed. The moderator is Prof. Laurette Dubé, Chair and Scientific Director, McGill Centre for the Convergence of Health and Economics (MCCHE).