About
The Center for the Resilient Mind supports the collaborations of neuroscientists, psychologists, clinicians, educators, artists, and social workers to identify, measure and capitalize on the brain mechanisms and mental health practices that afford resiliency to challenges that otherwise lead to lives of diminished opportunity, chronic disease, and mental illness – to understand how we can bend but not break.
Supporting Colleges
Supporting Colleges
Exploring the Questions
What are the resiliency mechanisms that can allow for a life of opportunity despite abuse, trauma or isolation?
How can social and artistic engagement shape and strengthen brain circuits to allow humans to reach their full potential?
Finding the Answers
Our focus is in the following areas:
- Program for Resilient Youth – Studying the factors behind healthy, resilient brain development and early life stress resilience.
- Program for Resilient Aging – Demonstrating how genetics and physical, social and community activities contribute to healthy aging.
- Program for Resilient Communities – Identifying the brain mechanisms and health consequences associated with aesthetic experience and activities.
- Program for Artistic Resilience – Investigating brain dynamics underlying artistic engagement and how these activities can shape and strengthen brain circuits for people to reach their full potential.
Joyce & Dusty Sang
Co-Founders, The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation
A resilient mind is capable of overcoming both neuroscientific and environmental obstacles and can imbue the human spirit with unstoppable courage and conviction. The work of this new Center will help discover and codify the biological, emotional and creative qualities that underpin resilience and will, for the first time, identify the mechanisms and tools that can help millions of people improve their daily lives.
Joyce & Dusty Sang
Critical Funding Needs
- Excellence funds to recruit nationally prominent faculty focused on resiliency research.
- Advanced technologies to conduct competitive research studies.
- Fellowships to support the best and brightest graduate and postdoctoral trainees.
- Funds to pursue advanced research that impacts individuals, health facilities and communities.
The Resilient Brain
A documentary from PBS South Florida's All Health Go network The Resilient Brain is a powerful exploration of the extraordinary complexity of the human brain across the lifespan featuring expertise from the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute's Randy Blakely, Ph.D., and Nicole Baganz, Ph.D.
Artistic Resilience
Investigating brain dynamics underlying artistic engagement and how these activities can shape and strengthen brain circuits allow us to reach our full potential.
Susan Magsamen, M.A.S.
Executive Director of IAM Lab, Johns Hopkins,
Co-Director, NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative
While much is already clear, we truly have just begun to understand the basis of the resiliency promoting power of aesthetic experience. The planned efforts of the Â鶹ŮÀÉ Center for the Resilient Mind hold great promise for illuminating the connections that reciprocally link art to brain health.
Susan Magsamen
Resilient Aging
Seeking opportunities to sustain brain plasticity and mental health into our senior years.
Henriette van Praag, Ph.D.
Department of Biomedical Science, Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine
We know that many practices, from exercise to diet, to social interactions can play a role in brain health resilience in the face of the challenges of normal aging, and that some of these lifestyle factors may delay the onset and/or progression of brain disorders. What is lacking is a true understanding of the underlying mechanisms as to how many of these factors can impact brain plasticity. Increased knowledge of the cellular and molecular underpinnings can allow us to design targeted interventions to benefit brain function during aging.
Henriette van Praag, Ph.D.
Resilient Communities
Identifying the social and environmental changes that can limit or overcome the challenges that arise from isolation, malnutrition and limited opportunity.
Patrick McNamara, L.C.S.W.
President and CEO Palm Health Foundation
From the moment we're born, all the way through our senior years, brain health impacts not just individuals but our whole economy and society. The costs — from medical care and lost work to the toll it takes on a family caregiver’s wellbeing — build up over time, especially when brain health issues aren’t caught early. The Â鶹ŮÀÉ Center for the Resilient Mind offers a remarkable opportunity to bring together neuroscientists, educators and brain health advocates to understand and build resilience across the lifespan, for ourselves, our families and our communities.
Patrick McNamara, L.C.S.W.
Neuroarts
Coming soon.
Resilient Youth
Discovering the factors behind healthy, resilient brain development and early life stress resilience
Teresa Wilcox, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
The human brain’s development — enabling us to perceive the world, think, remember, and connect with others — is one of humanity’s most extraordinary achievements. As this remarkable process unfolds amid a world filled with challenges and threats, it is critical that we continue to uncover the intricacies of mental development. Doing so opens pathways to resilience, empowering individuals to navigate life’s obstacles with strength and adaptability.
Teresa Wilcox, Ph.D.