There will be a Public Lecture at 7:00pm on Friday, Dec 13, in Toronto, Canada, at a Downtown location to be announced.

The speaker will Dr. Sonsoles de la Calle, and the title of her talk will be “Made for Connection: Neurobiology and Human Interconnectedness.”  This event is sponsored by the Toronto Chapter of SCS,

Abstract:

What is human nature, and how do we come to understand it through reason, science, philosophy, and faith? Personalistic philosophies, such as those proposed by K. Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II) and D. Von Hildebrand, describe the human as a person with bodily, psychic and spiritual dimensions tightly intertwined, so much so that it is impossible not to see the impact of each dimension in the manifestations of the others. This integrative view of the person is particularly well suited as a base for its relationality, its interaction with the world and with other persons.  Where the philosophical discourse may arrive to the theoretical explanation of relationality, neuroscience illuminates with empirical data in what way bodily reality contributes to human relationality, highlighting from a biological perspective how this basic need for connectedness is essential to health and human flourishing. In fact, I propose that hardwired neural mechanisms, that is, biologically primed and discernible in the basic structure and systems of the brain— support attachment behavior, relationality and connectedness, and will present evidence of how this is expressed particularly well (and intensely) in marriage.

Biography of the Speaker: 

Sonsoles de Lacalle obtained her M.D./Ph.D. from the University of Navarra (Spain). In 1990 she moved to the US with a Fulbright Fellowship to train with Prof. Clif B. Saper in the Department of Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences at the University of Chicago. Her academic experience includes teaching and research in a medical setting (at the Pritzker School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and at Ohio University’s College of Medicine) and in predominantly undergraduate institutions (CSU Los Angeles, C. R. Drew University and currently at CSU Channel Islands).