Evolution of the First Nervous Systems II, May 13-15, 2014, Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience at the University of Florida

这个奖项支持一个名为“第一神经系统的进化II”的国际会议。这次为期三天的会议将回顾1989年举行的一次类似的会议，该会议将于2014年5月在佛罗里达大学惠特尼海洋生物科学实验室举行。演讲者将涵盖一系列相关主题，重点是基础后生动物（例如，栉水母和刺胞动物）的系统发育，神经系统是第一个代表，以及早期的群体（例如，海绵），神经系统的一些成分已经被确定。会议将讨论几个重要的问题，包括神经系统在进化中首次出现的时间，神经系统是一次出现，还是多次出现，定义神经元的分子工具包（例如，电压门控离子通道，神经递质及其受体）来自哪里，以及如何利用它们来制造第一批神经元，以及整个神经系统进化主题的基础非常引人注目的问题，什么是神经元？会议记录将发表在《实验生物学杂志》的特刊上，并将包括一个章节，该章节将综合组织讨论的具体问题的内容，如上面列出的问题。这次会议将对动物进化中最重要的事件之一——神经系统的出现——提供前所未有的见解，并在此过程中，为追踪神经系统的进化并最终追踪人类大脑提供基线。会议将通过在线期刊和会议向全球观众推广，组织者正在做出战略性努力，让文理学院和少数民族服务机构的本科生参与其中。

This award supports an international conference entitled Evolution of the First Nervous Systems II. This three day meeting will revisit a similarly titled conference held in 1989, and take place in May, 2014 at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience of the University of Florida. Speakers will cover a range of pertinent topics, with an emphasis paid to the phylogeny of basal metazoans (e.g., ctenophores and cnidarians), where nervous systems are first represented and to earlier groups (e.g., sponges) where some components of nervous systems have been identified. The meeting will address several important questions including when nervous systems first appeared in evolution, whether nervous systems emerged once, or multiple times, where the molecular tool kits that define neurons (e.g., voltage-gated ion channels, neurotransmitters and their receptors) came from and how they were harnessed to make the first neurons, and the very compelling question that underlies the whole topic of nervous system evolution, what is a neuron? The proceedings of the meeting will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology and will include a chapter that will synthesize the content of organized discussions on specific questions such as those listed above. This meeting will provide unprecedented insight into one of the most significant events in animal evolution, the appearance of the nervous system and, in doing so, provide a baseline from which to trace the evolution of nervous systems and, ultimately, the human brain. The meeting will be promoted to a global audience through on-line journals and meetings, and a strategic effort is being made by the organizers to involve undergraduate students from liberal arts colleges and minority serving institutions.