Wiring the Brain: from Genetic to Neuronal Networks

描述（由申请人提供）：本次会议的目的是汇集来自发育神经生物学，精神病学和认知遗传学以及系统神经科学的研究人员，以促进这些通常独立领域之间的交流。我们希望促进对大脑连接的基本过程以及控制神经发育的基因变异如何影响人类大脑功能的更深层次的理解。在这些研究领域中有许多令人兴奋和趋同的发展，我们认为召开这样的会议非常及时。例如，对许多精神疾病的神经发育基础的日益了解，自闭症和精神分裂症等疾病的遗传结构模型的重大范式转变，特定风险基因的识别和这些疾病的有效动物模型的建立，动物和人类生理和神经成像内表型的发展，还有一个经验框架，可以解释神经元微电路在分子和细胞水平上的变化如何以可预测的方式影响更大网络的功能，对认知、感知和行为产生影响。这些领域的整合，以及成人神经发生和干细胞技术的平行进展，现在为合理设计治疗方法提供了途径和工具，以治疗这些和其他具有重大临床、社会和经济意义的疾病。这将是此类会议的首次会议之一，其具体目标是汇集来自发育神经生物学、精神病学和认知遗传学以及系统神经科学的研究人员，以促进这些通常独立领域之间的交流。在这些领域中，更专业的会议往往不会跨越传统的学科界限。例如，关于神经发育机制的会议往往不会提到人类，而那些关于精神病学遗传学的会议直到最近才从模式生物或对基本神经生物学机制的见解中得到很少的投入。然而，这些领域正在发生变化，因为最近的发现和技术进步使它们之间的联系得以建立，这首次为大脑线路的遗传学及其与从模式生物到人类的行为和疾病的关系提供了一个解释框架。公共卫生相关性：本次科学会议将为包括神经生理学、人类遗传学、神经发育、临床精神病学和心理学在内的许多学科的科学家提供一个独特的论坛，以展示他们的最新成果，交流思想并启动合作。因此，这次会议将提供一个巨大的机会，以提高我们对涉及神经连通性缺陷的社会破坏性神经发育障碍的理解，如精神分裂症、自闭症谱系障碍以及各种形式的智力迟钝和学习缺陷。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The aim of this meeting is to bring together researchers from developmental neurobiology, psychiatric and cognitive genetics and systems neuroscience to foster communication between these usually separate areas. We hope to promote a deeper understanding of the fundamental processes underlying brain wiring and how variation in genes controlling neurodevelopment affects human brain function. There have been exciting and convergent developments in many of these research fields that we feel make such a meeting very timely. These include, for example, the growing understanding of the neurodevelopmental basis of many psychiatric disorders, a major paradigm shift in models of the genetic architecture of disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, the identification of specific risk genes and the establishment of validated animal models for these disorders, the development of physiological and neuroimaging endophenotypes in animals and humans, and an empirical framework that can explain how alterations at the molecular and cellular levels in neuronal microcircuits affect the function of larger networks in ways that have predictable effects on cognition, perception and behavior. The integration of these areas, and parallel advances in adult neurogenesis and stem cell technologies, now offer avenues and tools for the rational design of therapeutics to treat these and other disorders of major clinical, social and economic importance. This will be one of the first meeting of its kind, with the specific goal of bringing together researchers from developmental neurobiology, psychiatric and cognitive genetics and systems neuroscience in order to foster communication between these usually separate areas. More specialized conferences in each of these areas tend not to look across traditional disciplinary boundaries. For example, meetings on the mechanisms of neural development tend not to have any mention of humans, while those on psychiatric genetics have until recently had little input from model organisms or insight into basic neurobiological mechanisms. These fields are changing, however, as recent discoveries and technological advances allow links to be made between them that provide, for the first time, an explanatory framework for the genetics of brain wiring and its relationship to behavior and disease, from model organisms to humans. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This scientific meeting will provide a unique forum for scientists across many disciplines including, neurophysiology, human genetics, neurodevelopment, clinical psychiatry and psychology to present their recent results, exchange ideas and initiate collaborations. This meeting will therefore provide a tremendous opportunity to improve our understanding of socially-devastating neurodevelopmental disorders implicating defects of neuronal connectivity at large such as schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders as well as various forms of mental retardations and learning deficits.