Enzian Theater Maitland, FL
Dr. Benjamin Fry
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Florida
Bug— Neurobiology of psychosis
Program Description
Dr. Benjamin Fry uses the film's themes from the film to explore schizophrenia. As an expert in the field, Dr. Fry approached the topic with the sensitivity and respect it deserves whilst educating and creating an understanding of what this condition is.
This event is part of our 2024 National Evening of Science on Screen.
Presented At
Enzian Theater Maitland, FL
Film Synopsis
An unhinged war veteran holes up with a lonely woman in a spooky Oklahoma motel room. The line between reality and delusion is blurred as they discover a bug infestation.
At a rundown desert motel, Agnes (Ashley Judd) begins a tentative relationship with a newcomer named Peter (Michael Shannon). He has a strange charisma, one that offers fearful and unstable Agnes a flicker of hope. When Peter reveals that the military deliberately infected him with a bug and that he has tiny insects crawling under his skin, paranoia begins to envelop the desperate pair.
Photo credit: Lions Gate Films
About the Speaker
Ben Fry is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Central Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Michigan State University in 2022. Dr. Fry is an expert on the role of midbrain dopaminergic circuitry as it pertains to diverse facets of human experience such as learning, memory, reward, addiction, and neuropsychiatric illness. In particular, his work has focused on identifying the neural circuitry underlying hallucinations in transgenic models of schizophrenia. Through a combination of Pavlovian learning theory, Bayesian inference, and cutting-edge modern neuroscience techniques, Dr. Fry hopes to identify novel treatment modalities for individuals with schizophrenia.