Everyone is going to this lecture about peer pressure this Friday

Nipissing University is pleased to welcome Dr. Cheryl McCormick, Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience from Brock University, to campus for a lecture on Friday, February 28, at 2 p.m. in room A257.The lecture is the latest in Nipissing’s Psychology Department Speaker Series.
The lecture is titled,Peer Pressures: Lasting Consequences of Social Stressors on Brain and Behaviour in an Animal Model.Here is an abstract:
There are a number of commonalities to adolescence across several mammalian species. For example, in both humans and rodents, it is a time of social restructuring with greater orientation toward peers, higher risk-taking, and altered sensitivity to drugs of abuse. Adolescence is a time of continued brain development as well as immaturity of stress-responsive systems, which may make the adolescent more vulnerable than the adult to stressors, and particularly social stressors. I will describe our investigations of the lasting consequences to social stressors in adolescence in a rodent model, which indicate that as adults, several weeks after the stress exposures, social and cognitive function of the stressed adolescent are impaired compared to non-stressed controls and compared to those that underwent the stress exposures as adults rather than in adolescence. I will describe our evidence that the developmental trajectory of the hippocampus is altered by social stressors. In sum, our research indicates that programming effects of life experiences are not limited to the perinatal period and that adolescence is a time of heightened risk and of opportunity.
Refreshments will be served.