Cognitive Enhancers: 22^nd Neuropharmacology Conference

Official Satellite to the 2012 Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience

Hilton Riverside, New Orleans, LA, USA | 11-12 October 2012

Conference Chairs

Gary Lynch, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
Barbara Sahakian, University of Cambridge, UK

Conference Organizing Committee

Graham Collingridge, University of Bristol, UK
Jacqueline Crawley, NIMH, NIH, USA
Jeffrey Nye, Johnson & Johnson, USA

Keynote Speakers

Eric Kandel, Columbia University, NY, USA
Richard Morris, University of Edinburgh, UK

Cognitive enhancement has become a subject of considerable research and, both in neuroscience and society at large, growing controversy. This satellite meeting will survey progress in the field from attempts to facilitate the substrates of memory and cognition in animal models to clinical studies targeted at major psychiatric disorders. Attendees will accordingly have a first-hand opportunity to learn about the broad spectrum of enhancement research ranging from epigenetics through synaptic plasticity and brain networks to behavior. Individual sessions include both cutting edge work on currently marketed drugs and experiments using novel, mechanism-based compounds. The program will therefore be of interest to those interested in present and future therapeutic prospects for autism, age-related cognitive decline, addiction, and depression.  It also directly addresses the possibility of enhancement in normal subjects, a contentious issue that affects much of the neuroscience community.

Topics List

Papers are invited on the following conference themes:

• Enhancing brain substrates of cognition:
  • Plasticity and memory
  • Cortical systems
• Enhancement as a treatment for cognitive disorders:
  • Aging
  • Spine dysfunction
  • Experience and epigenetics
  • Affective disorders
  • Schizophrenia
  • Autism spectrum disorders