CONFERENCE ON COCAINE--EFFECTS ON THE DEVELOPING BRAIN

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The conference, Cocaine: Effects on the Developing Brain, is scheduled to take place in September, 1997, in Washington, D.C. The principal investigator and chair of the meeting is John A. Harvey, Ph.D., MCP Hahneman School of Medicine. The co-chair of the meeting will be Barry E. Kosofsky, M.D., Ph.D., Harvard University. The conference will bring together 250 pediatricians, child neurologists, developmental pediatricians, neuroscientists, special education consultants and public policy experts. The purpose of this meeting is to review the current understanding of how prenatal exposure of developing brain to cocaine alters program for brain development with consequence for brain structure, function and human development. An estimate done percent of infants born in the United States today are exposed to cocaine in utero. A recent convergence of clinical data with results obtained in preclinical (animal) models suggests the vulnerability of particular brain structures and neurotransmitter systems subserving particular brain functions, as well as evidence for compromise of more global CNS function following gestational cocaine exposure. In addition, recent clinical studies have identified environmental factors that affect developing human brain postnatally, which may alter the expression of brain insults sustained consequent to in utero cocaine exposure. Conference speakers will review what is known concerning the molecular, neurochemical, physiologic, and neuropathologic processes mediating the toxicity of gestational cocaine exposure, and will identify behavioral and clinical correlates of that exposure. The synthesis of clinical and preclinical data may inform scientists regarding common mechanisms underlying aspects of the toxicity of cocaine on the developing brain. It will foster a broader understanding of the problem for clinicians, as well as stimulate thinking regarding identification of relevant, selective therapeutic agents Models for effective intervention, and the implications for public policy will be discussed.