Tjossem lecturer focuses on early brain injury

It has long been known that individuals who suffer brain damage very early in life may recover significant neurological function, compared to those who experience such brain injury later in life. The young brain has the ability to reorganize itself, allowing other areas of the brain to take over the functions of the lost areas.

However, research conducted by Dr. Jocelyne Bachevalier over the last 20 years shows that, depending on where and when the brain damage occurs, the brain’s reorganization after early brain lesions may be very deleterious, resulting in later neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

Bachevalier will discuss “Widespread Repercussions of Early Medial Temporal Lobe Damage” at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 25, at the Center on Human Development and Disability (CHDD).

Her lecture is part of the Theodore D. Tjossem Memorial Lecture Series on Child Development and Developmental Disabilities, sponsored by the CHDD. The lecture will be held in room CD 150, the main auditorium located in the Experimental Education Unit next to CHDD’s main clinical building.

Bachevalier is professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. She received a doctorate in psychophysiology from the University of Paris in 1975, and a Ph.D. in clinical sciences from the University of Montreal in 1981. She has been a guest researcher at the Laboratory of Neuropsychology at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., since 1975.

Bachevalier’s lab is evaluating the socio-emotional and cognitive development in monkeys with neonatal damage to the medial temporal lobe structures of the brain, developing animal models of human brain lesions. The goal is to locate maturational abnormalities of the central nervous system that may cause children to become autistic, dyslexic, learning disabled, schizophrenic or mentally retarded.

“The changes after a brain lesion occurs can be very negative,” said Bachevalier. “The reorganization that takes place inside the brain of the very young individual may not always be positive. There is not always recovery of function; it’s surely not true for social and emotional behavior.”

“Dr. Bachevalier is one of the top behavioral neuroscientists in the country, who trained in the lab of Dr. Mortimer Mishkin, a neuropsychologist at the National Institute of Mental Health,” said Dr. Gene Sackett, professor of psychology and associate director of CHDD.

Sackett organized the lecture series in 1992 in honor of Dr. Ted Tjossem, a psychologist and former UW faculty member who helped lay the foundation for the creation of the CHDD in the 1960s. Tjossem went on to direct the Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Program of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

More information on Bachevalier and her research is on the Web at

http://nba19.med.uth.tmc.edu/faculty/bachevalier.htm

Laurie McHale, CHDD