Dr. Raymond Chan from the Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience (NACN) Laboratory, CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, has jointly organized an online symposium with Prof. Ci-ping Deng from the Institute of Child Development, East China Normal University to specifically focus on the recent development of child and adolescent work based on affective and cognitive neuroscience approach. The main theme of this symposium was“Study of subclinical psychopathology in children and adolescents”. Dr. Raymond Chan and Prof. Ci-ping Deng both co-chaired the symposium and gave opening speeches to the symposium. Dr. Chan has made a presentation on “A recap and update of the developmental cognitive neuroscience” to re-orient the audience to the latest findings of developmental cognitive neuroscience articulating to clinical and subclinical samples. Prof. Ci-ping Deng also made a presentation on“Rethinking nature, nurture and developmental diversity”. More than 50 faculty members and postgraduate students attended this 1-day symposium. A total of 9 presentations were reported by team members from both Beijing and Shanghai. At end of the symposium, all the presenters and attendees have discussed the future work of developmental cognitive neuroscience. They agreed to extend the present focus to a transdiagnostic approach to better understand the psychopathology of subclinical groups in children and adolescents samples, and hence, to formulate a better prevention and therapeutic programmes for mental disorders.

The joint laboratory symposium is a biennial event co-organized by Dr. Chan and Prof. Deng. The main aim of this joint symposium is to promote research in the areas of developmental cognitive neuroscience between the two groups, especially in the area of typically developing children and adolescents, individuals with subclinical features and neurodevelopmental disorders using a wide range of neuro-scientific methods.