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

该奖项支持一个名为“第一个神经系统的进化II”的国际会议。这个为期三天的会议将重温1989年在佛罗里达大学惠特尼海洋生物科学实验室举行的一个类似名称的会议。发言者将讨论一系列相关主题，重点放在神经系统首次出现的基础后生动物(例如，线虫和线虫)的系统发展史，以及已确定神经系统某些组成部分的早期群体(例如，海绵)。会议将讨论几个重要的问题，包括神经系统在进化中第一次出现的时间，神经系统是一次还是多次出现，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，它们是如何被利用来制造第一个神经元的，以及神经系统进化整个主题下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》的一期特刊上，并将包括一章，其中将综合就上述问题等具体问题进行的有组织讨论的内容。这次会议将对动物进化史上最重要的事件之一神经系统的出现提供前所未有的洞察，并通过这样做，提供一个基线，以跟踪神经系统的进化，并最终追踪人类大脑的进化。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努力，让文科院校和少数族裔服务机构的本科生参与进来。

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.