Conference: 2010 Synaptic Transmission GRC, July 25-30, 2010 at University of New England, Biddeford, ME

突触传递是神经系统功能各个方面的基础。生物体的行为、感觉和学习都依赖于神经细胞之间通过突触传递信息。研究人员已经了解到神经元之间的交流是一个高度复杂的过程，为了更好地理解这一过程，需要多学科的方法和互补的尖端技术的使用。本提案要求部分支持Synaptic Transmission国际会议，作为Gordon研究会议系列的一部分，该会议将于2010年7月25日至30日在缅因州比德福德美国大西洋沿岸的新英格兰大学校园举行。会议的长远目标是增加我们对突触传递的基本分子和细胞机制的理解。本次会议的具体目的是召集34位代表突触传递研究关键领域的演讲者，共有140名与会者在一个相对孤立的环境中参加为期五天的会议。该项目包括学术生涯各个阶段的演讲者和讨论领袖。值得注意的是，演讲者中有四位是美国国家科学院院士，其中两位是诺贝尔生理学或医学奖得主。Synaptic Transmission的GRC是讨论该领域最新进展的理想场所，通过汇集不同领域的世界级专家来跨越学科，并通过促进高级和初级研究人员之间的互动来促进未来的发展。本次会议期间的讨论将有助于确定广泛的研究问题，这些问题将定义该领域未来的工作，并在各种实验系统中奠定基础和高阶脑功能的大多数方面。

Synaptic transmission underlies every aspect of nervous system function. How organisms act, feel, and learn all rely on information transfer between nerve cells through synapses. Investigators have learned that the communication between neurons is a highly complex process, and that a better understanding of such process requires a multidisciplinary approach and the use of complementary and cutting-edge techniques. This proposal requests partial support for an international meeting on Synaptic Transmission as part of the Gordon Research Conference series to be held at the University of New England Campus on the US Atlantic coast in Biddeford, Maine during the week of July 25-30, 2010. The broad and long term goal of the conference is to increase our understanding of the fundamental molecular and cellular mechanisms of synaptic transmission. The specific aims of this meeting will be to convene 34 speakers that represent critical areas of synaptic transmission research with a total of 140 participants for a five day conference in a relatively isolated setting. The program includes speakers and discussion leaders at various levels of their academic careers. Remarkably, four of the speakers are members of the National Academy of Sciences, and two of them are Nobel Prize awardees in Physiology or Medicine. The GRC on Synaptic Transmission is an ideal venue for discussing major recent advances in the field, bridging across disciplines by bringing together world-class experts in different areas, and fostering future developments by promoting the interaction between senior and junior investigators. The discussions during this meeting will help to identify broad research questions that will define future work in this area and underly most aspects of basal as well as higher-order brain function in a variety of experimental systems.