Program
Speakers
Symposia
Stress and stress hormones: processing and storage of emotional information
Relevant information is always accompanied by emotion. Social information and/or energy cues tend to be emotional. Stress facilitates the processing of important rather than non-significant information. Thereby, stress will interact with emotion, social information, and energy cues. The proposed symposium will present studies in humans that explore (i) how genetic differences in the glucocorticoid system affect emotional memory, (ii) whether stress will impact on the consolidation of socially relevant face identity and expression memory, (iii) how stress influences social threat processing, and (iv) how psychosocial stress modulates habitual behavior in an appetitive learning task.
Chair: Melly S. Oitzl
Speakers:
- Dominique de Quervain
- Hartmut Schächinger
- Karin Roelofs
- Oliver Wolf
Looking into the stressed brain
Neuroimaging techniques have developed rapidly over the past years, providing increasingly sophisticated tools for the examination of brain function and structure in relation and reaction to stress. This technical development is paralleled by the introduction of novel neuroimaging paradigms designed to disentangle complex processes and interactions in the stressed brain.
In this symposium the speakers will present examples of this approach in the studies of stress regulation, the modulation of cognitive and emotional function by stress, and fear conditioning and extinction.
Chair: Nic van der Wee
Speakers:
- Jens Pruessner
- Anda van Stegeren
- Erno Hermans
- Christian Büchel
Novel translational research persectives on stress and depression
Chronic or traumatic stress is one of the best characterized environmental risk factors for affective disorders. While it is clear that genetic or epigenetic variations predispose certain individuals
to be more vulnerable to stress exposure, this complex gene-environment interaction is only poorly mimicked by many of the established animal models of depression. This symposium will therefore
highlight a number of new and translational strategies in modelling stress and depression. The speakers will illustrate how a paradigm shift in the recent years has led to novel approaches, including paradigms focusing on the interaction of genetic background with environmental challenges.
Chair: Thomas Steckler
Speakers:
- Jaap Koolhaas
- Igor Branchi
- Gregers Wegener
- Mathias Schmidt
From epigenetics to proteins: new approaches and insights in psychopathology
This session aims to connect past and current breakthroughs in stress research with exciting new developments in the emerging research areas of epigenetics and brain plasticity. Different approaches and new technologies will be presented which should enable us to identify novel pathophysiological mechanisms of stress-related mood disorders, as well as to evaluate potential novel treatments for these diseases.
Chair: Jos Prickaerts
Speakers:
- Hans Reul
- Moshe Szyf
- Chris Turck
- Herbert Covington
Consequences of chronic psychosocial stress: behaviour, neurons and immunology
Chronic stress is a burden of modern societies and is known to be a risk factor in numerous somatic and affective disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), colonic carcinogenesis, chronic pain, anxiety- and depression-related diseases and systemic immunological dysfunctions. However, there are only a few clinically relevant animals models available to study the underlying mechnisms of chronic stress-induced diseases in detail. In this sympsium, leading scientists in the field will present detailed neuronal, behavioural, immunological and other systemic (mal-) adaptations as a result of chronic psychosocial stress in relevant rodent models, for example based on dominant-subdominant hierarchies Stefan Reber will start to present a recently established mouse model of chronic subordinate colony housing resulting in various neuroendocrine, immunological, and behavioural alterations. He will, futhermore show molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying chronic stress-induced adrenal insufficiency causally involved in immune alterations leading to acute colonic inflammation. Additive effects of early life stress and chronic stress in adulthood strongly affect these relevant behavioural and physiological parameters.
Carmen Sandi will continue on the consequences of exposure to chronic stress during infancy and puberty on the development of emotional alterations and abnormal social behaviour, as well as on the mechanisms that mediate these effects. She will present work implicating changes in gene expression (serotonergic pathways) in the prefrontal cortex and epigenetic mechanisms linked to these long-term effects. John Cryan will continue to elaborate on the impact of chronic stress and also early life stress on brain-gut axis communication. In particular the neural circuitry underlying such changes will be discussed and the impact of genetics and dietary factors will be highlighted
Chair: Inga Neumann
Speakers:
- Carmen Sandi
- Stefan Reber
- John Cryan
How the brain responds quickly to stress: Focus on corticosteroids
Stress hormones reach the brain shortly after stress exposure. Classically, it was thought that brain function is rapidly affected by monoamines, followed several hours later by corticosteroid hormones. However, exciting studies have now shown that corticosteroids also rapidly affect brain function.
First, Astrid Linthorst will show that after stress corticosteroid levels not only change quickly in the circulation, but also in limbic brain regions. Luke Johnson will then present EM data demonstrating corticosteroid receptors in the plasma membrane of limbic cells. Henk Karst will report that function of hippocampal and amygdalar neurons is rapidly changed by corticosterone. Finally, Jeffrey Tasker shows that in the hypothalamus too cells quickly respond to corticosterone, contributing to rapid feedback of the HPA-axis.
Chair: Marian Joels
Speakers:
- Astrid Linthorst
- Luke Johnson
- Henk Karst
- Jeffrey Tasker
Stress, inflammation and depression
Stress can activate the HPA axis and trigger inflammatory responses, both of which significantly contribute to the aetiology of depression and neurodegenerative diseases. In this symposium four experts will present and discuss their recent findings in 1) HPA axis and immune interaction in stress related disorders; 2) the relationship between stress and inflammation in the dysfunction of endothelial cells and the heart in depressed patients before and after treatment with SSRI's or SNRI's; 3) chronic stress and depression combination with chronic low grade inflammation to decrease neuronal repair by the tryptophan-kynurenine pathway and neurotrophins and 4) the mechanism of inflammation by which activating the HPA axis and suppressing neurotrophic system induces depressive and neurodegenerative changes.
Chair: Cai Song
Speakers:
- Ted Dinan
- Angelos Halaris
- Brian Leonard
- Cai Song
Prof Murray Esler
- Head: Hypertension, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Division, Baker ID Heart and Diabetes Institute
- Associate Director, Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne
- Professor of Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne
- Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
Prof. Esler is a cardiologist and medical scientist, based at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute and the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests are:
- The human sympathetic nervous system
- Stress, and its effects on the heart and blood pressure
- Causes and treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure
- Neurotransmitters of the human brain
He is the author of more than 350 papers on these topics.
Prof Guillen Fernandez
Guillén Fernández is full Professor of Cognitive Neurology at the Radboud University Nijmegen and adjunct Professor of Human Cognition at the University of Amsterdam. He obtained is medical degree (1994), his doctorate (1995), and his habilitation (2001) at Bonn University. He received full training in clinical neurology and cognitive neurosciences in Bonn, Magdeburg, and Stanford. In 2002, he became a founding principal investigator of the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen. His area of research is human cognitive neuroscience in which he studies the brain basis of memory, emotion, and their interactions. He applies an interdisciplinary approach integrating cognitive- and affective neuroscience with neuroimaging, genetics, pharmacology and diverse clinical disciplines. He is author of 114 articles in renowned journals including Science, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, and PNAS. He is elected member of the Memory Disorder Research Society. He received the Richard-Jung Award of the German Society for Clinical Neurophysiology (2002) and the Vici Award of the Dutch Science Foundation (2005).
Prof Stafford Lightman
Stafford Lightman is Professor of Medicine at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and is Director of the Henry Wellcome Laboratories for Integrative Neuroscience and Endocrinology. He started his scientific career working on catecholamines and opioid peptides with Leslie Iversen at the University of Cambridge and provided some of the first data linking opioid peptides with the regulation of neurohypophysial function. At this time he also performed some of the first studies demonstrating the importance of brain stem catecholamine pathways in the regulation of hypothalamic activity. On moving to what is now Imperial College in London, he started to develop his studies on the role of the brain in the regulation of the stress response. He demonstrated the shift from CRH to arginine vasopressin in the control of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis during chronic stress, demonstrated and characterised the development of stress hyporesponsiveness during lactation in both rats and man and developed models of immunological activation of the stress response. More recently he has developed the concept of the importance of digital signalling inherent in the pulsatile release of glucocorticoid hormones and has been able to demonstrate the specificity of mineralocorticoid receptor and glucocorticoid receptor responsiveness to rapid changes in levels of circulating glucorticoids.
Stafford Lightman was the founder Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroendocrinology, a founder Fellow of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, the founder Chairman of the Pituitary Foundation and a Council Member of the Physiological Society. He sits on several Research Councils, Wellcome Trust and European Research Committees and has Chaired the European Union Committee Review of Tertiary Education in East Africa. Professor Lightman also has a major interest in inter-relationships between art and neuroscience and is a frequent speaker on both radio and television in the United Kingdom.
Prof Marinus H van IJzendoorn
Marinus H. van IJzendoorn is a professor of child and family studies and scientific director of the Rommert Casimir Institute for Developmental Psychopathology at Leiden University (The Netherlands). His main research topic is parenting and its influence on children's attachments and stress regulation. In the genomics era the influence of parents on development is not self-evident. Twin, adoption, and intervention studies of the Leiden research team show, however, that parenting does matter. But parents as well as children seem differentially susceptible to (changes in) their environment, dependent on genetic, neurobiological or temperamental factors --which is the main focus in much of the Leiden research.
Marinus H. van IJzendoorn is elected member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences, and an honorary doctor of the University of Haifa. He received the Spinoza Prize of the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research, and the SRCD Award for Distinguished International Contributions to Child Development. He was a recipient of a fellowship from the International Rotary Foundation, a senior Fulbright fellowship, and a fellowship of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS).
Among his special keynotes were the Lawrence Kohlberg Memorial Lecture at the 35th Annual Conference of the Association for Moral Education (2009), the Emanuel Miller Memorial Lecture of the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health (2006), and the Winnicott Lecture at the national meeting of the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health (997). He is member of the editorial boards of Child Maltreatment, Child Development, Social Development, Attachment and Human Development, Infant Behavior and Development, and Parenting.
For detailed information and publication, see:
http://www.socialsciences.leiden.edu/educationandchildstudies/childandfamilystudies/
Prof Gal-Richter Levin
Prof. Gal Richter-Levin is currently the head of the Haifa Forum for Brain and Behavior, and co-director of the Institute for the Study of Affective Neuroscience (ISAN). He earned his PhD (1992) at the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel. After two years was with Prof. Tim Bliss at the National Institute for Medical Research, London, UK, he joined the University of Haifa in 1995 and since 2006 he is a full professor in the Department of Psychology and in the Department of Neurobiology. In 2009 he was nominated the Dean of the Natural Sciences Faculty.
Combining behavioral, electrophysiological and biochemical approaches, Prof. Richter-Levin's research examines the role of emotional and amygdala activation in memory formation, and the effects of stressful experiences in early life on cognitive and emotional abilities in adulthood. These are studied in association with developing novel animal models of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and of Stress-induced Depression.
Prof Roger Pitman
Dr. Pitman is a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. He served as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam era and went on to complete a 30-year career in the Department of Veterans Affairs prior to moving to MGH. He is the recipient of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies’ Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in the field of PTSD and its Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Pitman’s research into the psychobiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) spans more than 25 years. He has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications on PTSD and more than 200 overall publications in the general psychiatric and medical literature. He has authored or co-authored numerous structural and functional neuroimaging studies of PTSD. For the past 12 years, he has been conducting a large-scale, psychobiologic investigation of a national sample of monozygotic twins discordant for combat exposure in Vietnam. His current major research interest is whether medications administered at the time of traumatic memory reactivation can weaken traumatic memories through reconsolidation blockade, which represents a potential novel treatment for PTSD.
Prof Jonathan Seckl
Jonathan Seckl is both medically and scientifically qualified (MBBS at UCL, PhD at Imperial College London). A clinical endocrinologist and former Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Research Fellow, Seckl’s research (funded by 4 successive programme grants from the Wellcome Trust, and additional programme awards from MRC, Wellcome and HFSP) focuses on glucocorticoid biology from ‘cloning to clinic’. His main themes are the importance of local tissue regeneration/metabolism of glucocorticoids (by 11ß-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases) as a cause of and therapeutic target for age-related memory impairments and the metabolic syndrome-diabetes-obesity continuum. His group advanced and supported the glucocorticoid hypothesis of fetal ‘programming’ and has elucidated molecular and epigenetic mechanisms by which this leads to subsequent disorders in adult life. Seckl has authored over 280 peer-reviewed scientific papers (career citations >18,000), has given ~200 invited lectures at international meetings, has talked to schools, teachers groups, lay audiences and in public fora on stress, obesity, developmental programming and ageing. 34 of Seckl’s students have gained PhDs.
Dr Robb Stanley
The President of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress (ISIS) Robb Stanley was for 30 years in the Dept of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. He trained in New Zealand as a Clinical Psychologist and practiced in Australia for 25 years, specializing in the treatment of stress, anxiety and affective disorders. His research interests include the neurosciences, cognitive behavioural psychotherapy and clinical hypnosis. He has published 68 academic publications. As well as his role in ISIS he was Secretary/Treasurer of the International Society of Hypnosis from 1994 to 2000. He is currently on the Editorial Board of Stress and Health.
Currently he is the Executive Officer of the Royal Society of Victoria an organization that has been promoting the sciences for the benefit of the community since 1854.
Prof Richard Tremblay
Richard E. Tremblay is Professor of Child Development at the School of Public Health, University College Dublin and Professor of Paediatrics, Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Montreal. He coordinates the Marie Curie International Network for Early Childhood Health Development. For the past twenty five years he has been conducting a program of longitudinal and experimental studies on physical, cognitive, emotional and social development from conception to adulthood. From these studies he has published more than 300 scientific peer reviewed articles. He is a fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.