Conference--Pathogenesis of Neuroimmunologic Disease

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application represents a request for continued support for a short course entitled "Pathogenesis of Neuroimmuno1ogical Diseases" offered at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. It is anticipated that the course will be offered every other year for 2001, 2003 and 2005. The course offers a comprehensive survey of current concepts in the pathogenetic mechanisms involved in a series of neurologic and psychiatric diseases, and includes a faculty, numbering about 40, composed of basic scientists and physician scientists with a wide area of expertise. The two week program of lectures will describe the application of genetic, molecular, and cell physiologic concepts and techniques in current use in immunology and neurophysiology to the analysis of the pathogenesis of the better known neurologic diseases thought to have an immune basis. Lectures in Immunopathologic Mechanisms will deal with: neural antigens and with the cellular components of the nervous and immune systems, their genetic control, and their interactions; with antigen processing and presentation, immunogenesis, and tolerogenesis; with cytokines, complement, neuroendocrine, and "psychoneuroimmunologic" relationships; and with the role of viruses in immunopathologic disorders of the nervous system. Primarily Antibody-Mediated "autoimmune" disorders will include: myasthenia gravis, Guillain Barre disease, and paraneoplastic disorders. Primarily Cell-Mediated 'autoimmune" disorders will include: acute post-infectious encephalomyelitis, multiple sclerosis, and chronic inflammatory diseases of the eye, the autonomic nervous system, and muscle. Additional lectures will deal with Persistent Viral Infections of the nervous system and chronic inflammatory disorders of the CNS related to immune dysfunction, such as: HTLV- 1-associated myelopathy, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, SSPE, nervous system manifestations of AIDS, and Alzheimer's disease. The presentations will deal with mechanisms underlying disease process and lesion formation, and with their physiologic consequences. The sessions will be supplemented by demonstrations of patients with typical neuroimmunologic disease at health care institutions and of relevant viral and autoimmune models in animals.