Wiring the Brain: from Genetic to Neuronal Networks

描述(申请人提供)：本次会议的目的是将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聚集在一起，促进这些通常是分开的领域之间的交流。我们希望促进更深入地了解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。我们认为，在这些研究领域中的许多领域都取得了令人兴奋和一致的发展，这使得召开这样一次会议非常及时。例如，这些问题包括：对许多精神疾病的神经发育基础的了解日益加深；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；确定特定的风险基因并为这些疾病建立有效的动物模型；在动物和人类中发展生理和神经成像内表型；以及一个经验框架，该框架可以解释神经元微电路中分子和细胞水平的变化如何以对认知、感知和行为具有可预测影响的方式影响大型网络的功能。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步，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。这将是此类会议中的第一次，其具体目标是将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聚集在一起，以促进这些通常是分开的领域之间的交流。这些领域中更多的专门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没有提到人类，而那些关于精神病学遗传学的会议直到最近才从模型生物或对基本神经生物学机制的洞察中获得了很少的投入。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，这首次为大脑连接的遗传学及其与行为和疾病的关系提供了一个解释框架，从模式生物到人类。与公共卫生相关：这次科学会议将为许多学科的科学家提供一个独特的论坛，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，以展示他们的最新成果，交流思想和发起合作。因此，这次会议将提供一个巨大的机会，以增进我们对具有社会破坏性的神经发育障碍的了解，这些障碍涉及一般神经元连接的缺陷，如精神分裂症、自闭症谱系障碍以及各种形式的精神发育迟缓和学习障碍。

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.