Top researchers to explore stress and anxiety, trauma, poverty and addiction seminar

Promising scientific investigations that might someday yield new strategies related to anxiety, addiction, trauma caused by war or natural disasters, and brain development among children growing up in poverty will be the focus of a seminar on "Science, Stress and Human Health."

The 2008 Philip Hauge Abelson Advancing Science Seminar will take place Friday, 24 October at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 12th and H Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. (near the Metro Center subway stop).

The lecture will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. There will be a breakfast beginning at 8:00 a.m., lunch at 11:30 a.m., and a reception at 5:00 p.m.

Robert Sapolsky, the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University will deliver the seminar's keynote lecture on stress-related disorders and society at 8:40 a.m. Dr. Steven E. Hyman, provost and professor of neurobiology at Harvard University, will deliver the capstone address concluding the ten-speaker seminar. The program will be moderated by Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS and executive publisher of the journal Science.

The seminar will feature sessions on three broad topics:

The Biology of Stress:

Firdaus Dhabhar, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of research at the Stanford Center on Stress and Health, will present research suggesting that some short-term stresses can benefit organisms by preparing their cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, or immune systems for challenges.

The session will also include a presentation on neurodegenerative disorders by Richard I. Morimoto, the Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology and director of the Rice Institute for Biomedical Research at Northwestern University; and on genetics and stress by Darlene Francis, assistant professor of neuroscience, psychology and public health at the University of California, Berkeley.

Social Factors, Behavior, and Physical Impacts:

Martha J. Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience who serves as the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, will present research demonstrating a link between childhood poverty and stress. The research shows that while many aspects of poverty can affect brain development, stress can affect the development and functioning of brain systems necessary for learning and memory as well as self-regulation.

The session will also include a presentation on treating emotional trauma by David M. Diamond, director of the Center for Preclinical and Clinical Research on Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and professor of psychology and molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida, who also serves as a research career scientist in the Medical Research Division of the Tampa Veterans Affairs Hospital. Another presentation will be offered on stress, addiction, and relapse behaviors by Markus Heilig, chief of the Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health.

Psychology and Future Treatments:

Joseph LeDoux, University Professor and Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at the Center for Neural Science at New York University, will explore the role protein synthesis plays in both the consolidation of the stressful memories after the initial experience and also later when the memory is reactivated.

In addition, Bruce P. Dohrenwend, professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health and Foundations' Fund for Research in Psychiatry Professor at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, will detail how scientists' understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder has evolved since it was first officially diagnosed in 1980.

Article published on 30/10/2008