To start the 2023-24 FEU cultural season, join us for the first edition of this year’s Medical Studies program with alumnas and former Harriet Hale Woolley psychology award grantees Nausicaa Christodoulou and Laura Guatteri. Their two conferences will cover topics such as the intersection of mental health and global warming, and negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
Global Warming and Mental Health, Nausicaa Christodoulou :
With the current advancement of global warming, the earth will experience more and more heatwaves in the coming years. Although more than one in every 10 people suffers from a psychiatric condition, the effect of these heatwaves on mental health has received little attention. The notion of a heatwave itself is unclear and depends on different criteria. During this conference, Nausicaa Christodoulou will present the results of her national study, conducted in partnership with APHP, Santé Publique France and Météo France, on the impact of extreme temperatures on emergency psychiatric hospital admissions. She will also address the idea of eco-anxiety through a medical lens and present an innovative concept known as ecolalgia .
Negative symptoms of schizophrenia: anatomy of the prefrontal cortex, Laura Guatteri :
Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric condition that affects millions of people around the world. The condition can be a severe handicap for the person affected, due largely to a category of symptoms known as negative symptoms. These symptoms, which include apathy, diminished emotional expression, and social reclusivity, have a profound impact on the quality of life for patients. However, the psychopathology of these symptoms remains poorly understood, limiting the ability to develop effective treatments. Laura Guatteri will present the results of a neuro-imaging study in which she participated, which used MRI brain imaging data of affected patients in order to identify anomalies in the prefrontal cortex (the cerebral structure that plays a critical role in cognition, decision-making, planning and emotional regulation) in relation to negative symptoms.
Practical Information
Date Tuesday, September 12 | Time 7:30pm | Facebook Event
About the speakers
Nausicaa Christodoulou always wanted to be a doctor. Sensitive, curious and fascinated by the human mind’s complexity, she chose to specialize in psychiatry in 2019. Very soon in her studies, she decided to turn herself towards a research career to actively participate to the psychiatry progress and its positive fallouts for patients and their relatives. Passionate by nature and outdoor activities, she presents a particular interest to chronobiology in psychiatry and to how the environment and human behaviors impact our mental health and our sleep. In 2019, she led a study on sleep quality and medicine studies and in 2021 she realized her thesis on modifications of lifestyle during the covid period and its impacts on sleep. These two studies led to prevention campaigns to improve students and general population’s mental health. During her free time, Nausicaa loves hiking and biking but also taking part to the countless cultural activities of Paris. She pulls from her different origins: Greek, French and Russian, a taste for novelty, different cultures and meetings with people from different backgrounds. During the 2022-2023 academic year, thanks to the Harriet Hale Woolley scholarship from the Fondation des États-Unis, she will study neurosciences while participating in a study on the links between heatwaves and emergency units’ admissions for psychiatric motives. She hopes that the results of this study will raise the awareness of the importance of the ecology and allow the development of new public actions in mental health prevention.
Laura Guatteri is a psychiatry resident, a specialty that charmed her during her early years of medical school in Nice through its capacity to place the patient at the center of care in a multidisciplinary and medical-social approach. Originally from the south of France, Laura arrived in Paris in 2018 to complete her residency. She knows how to organize time to take advantage of all the cultural opportunities that the capital can offer and exchange with a multitude of people from various backgrounds. Therefore, she is looking forward to participating in the multidisciplinary projects of the Medical Cultures cycle offered by the Fondation des Etats-Unis. Curious by nature, she quickly decided to deepen her knowledge during a year of research. Naturally, having had the opportunity to attend various psychiatric conferences and to do most of her internships in university centers, her encounters led her to an interest in regarding neuroimaging in patients with schizophrenia. It is also complex clinical situations in which medicine does not yet offer an optimal solution that have aroused intrigued this desire for research. The Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship from the Fondation des Etats-Unis will allow Laura to complete a master’s degree in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience during the 2021-2022 academic year, and thus participate in a research project in neuroimaging aimed at better understanding the brain circuits involved in certain mental pathologies, thus contributing to innovative therapeutic advances in brain stimulation.