14th Annual Flux Congress — Day Two
Day Two of the 14th Annual Flux Congress shifted the focus outward. I should note that there were concurrent presentations that I could not attend, so the following is information gathered from presentations that I personally attended—
If Day One was largely about how the developing brain learns what matters, Day Two asked a different question:
What do we do with what we learn?
The morning symposium, “From Synapses to Society,” focused on the difficult—but increasingly important—task of translating developmental science beyond academia.
Bruce Lewenstein, PhD, opened with a simple idea that stayed with me throughout the day:
Communication is the essence of science.
Good science communication is not simply about correcting a public “deficit” in knowledge. It requires dialogue, participation, and a clear understanding of the audience. Before communicating research, scientists should be asking: Who am I speaking to? What am I trying to accomplish? What matters to the people receiving this information?
That also raises a larger question: Who should guide research priorities—scientific curiosity alone, or the communities affected by the research?
Natalie Alpert, MPA, brought that discussion directly into policymaking. She emphasized that researchers can play an important role in shaping public understanding and government investment in science, but they need to be able to explain their work quickly and clearly.
Her suggested framework for a two-minute elevator pitch was simple:
What are you studying? Why does it matter? What happens if it isn't supported?
I may need to start practicing that one.
Guadalupe Diaz-Lara, PhD, continued the policy discussion by emphasizing context, equity, and timing. Policymakers often need researchers to clearly explain what the science already tells us, not every uncertainty surrounding a field. One practical tool she discussed was the two-page policy brief: concise, accessible, and focused on what the research actually means for the intended audience.
Together, these talks reinforced that producing knowledge and creating change are not the same thing. Translation is its own skill.
The afternoon moved back toward developmental neuroscience, but the same theme—connecting science with real people—continued.
Matt Mittoni, PhD, discussed functional connectivity heterogeneity and idiographic approaches to neuroscience: studying individuals intensively rather than assuming group averages accurately describe everyone.
One of the most striking ideas was how poorly an average model of brain connectivity can sometimes represent the individuals who produced that average.
It is an important reminder that an “average brain” may be statistically useful, yet falls short when considering individuals.
Brenden Tervo-Clemmens, PhD, LP, described his own progression from developmental cognitive neuroscience into data science and real-world adolescent outcomes. His work examines risk-taking, impulsivity, externalizing behavior, and their relevance to substance-use risk—while also highlighting the inevitable failed analyses, methodological detours, and revisions involved in doing this work.
Research apparently continues to have the inconvenient habit of being research.
Eveline Crone, PhD, explored adolescent neural responses to outcomes involving the self and others. Regions involved in reward and social cognition—including the ventral striatum and temporoparietal junction—appear to change across adolescence as young people increasingly navigate friendships, competition, cooperation, and increasingly complex social identities.
Her work also highlighted Youth Participatory Action Research, in which young people are not simply treated as research subjects but become active participants in shaping research questions and projects.
That felt closely connected to the morning's discussion of dialogue and community engagement.
Beatriz Luna, PhD, then showed how longitudinal research can reveal the gradual stabilization of cognitive and neural systems into adulthood. Rather than treating development as a series of snapshots, longitudinal approaches allow researchers to follow trajectories—capturing not only where someone is, but how they got there.
Another theme that stood out strongly was the influence of environment.
Divyangana Rakesh, PhD, presented research examining how children's physical and socioeconomic environments become linked with brain development, cognition, and mental health. Access to resources, neighborhood conditions, green space, and broader socioeconomic inequality may all become reflected in developmental outcomes.
Tom Silk, PhD, extended the environmental conversation into epigenetics and ADHD outcomes. Epigenetic processes were described less like simple on/off switches and more like dimmer switches, modifying how genes are expressed in relation to experience and environment. His work explored how environmental and socioeconomic factors may relate to developmental trajectories and ADHD remission.
The final portion of the day brought developmental neuroscience into direct contact with clinical care.
Morningstar and colleagues examined how adolescents improve at recognizing increasingly ambiguous emotional cues. Emotion recognition is not merely a social nicety—it is a core developmental skill supported by changes in cognitive, social, and neurobiological systems.
Other presentations examined neurocognitive markers of emerging mood pathology, including how differences in executive functioning and reward sensitivity may help identify adolescents at greater risk for later difficulties.
Brittany Manning, PhD, addressed one of the largest gaps in psychological science: the space between what researchers know and what clinicians actually do.
Implementation science attempts to bridge that gap.
Her framework emphasized identifying real clinical problems, cross-training researchers and clinicians, collaborating across disciplines, and investing in methods that allow research findings to survive contact with actual healthcare systems.
Then Sarah Whittle, PhD, presented work on an emotion-focused parenting intervention during early adolescence.
The intervention encouraged parents to:
Notice emotions.
Treat emotion as an opportunity for connection.
Accept, validate, and empathize.
Help adolescents label what they are feeling.
Problem-solve together.
What made the study particularly compelling was that these relatively straightforward changes in parenting were associated not only with reported improvements in adolescents' emotion regulation, but with measurable changes in patterns of functional brain connectivity.
That is a tangible bridge between levels of explanation:
Conversations between a parent and teenager can become visible in patterns of brain function.
By the end of Day Two, the message I kept returning to was that developmental neuroscience cannot stop at describing the brain.
Understanding development requires moving continuously between levels:
synapses → brains → behavior → relationships → neighborhoods → institutions → policy.
And then, ideally, back again.
The science becomes most meaningful when knowledge can move across those levels—when neural mechanisms inform clinical care, community experiences shape research questions, and developmental evidence helps influence the environments and policies in which children grow.
That feels like a much bigger mission than simply mapping the developing brain.
It is figuring out how to use that knowledge responsibly.
