222S BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2008;63:1S-301S Saturday Abstracts SATURDAY, MAY 3 neural systems, he identified inhibitory circuits that orchestrate the structural and functional rewiring of connections in response to early sensory experience. His work impacts not only basic understanding of brain development, but PLENARY SESSION also the potential treatment for devastating cognitive disorders in adulthood. Neural Development and Neurodevelopmental Hensch has received several honors, including the Tsukahara Prize (Japan Brain Science Foundation); Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science Disorders and Technology (MEXT) Prize; NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and the first Saturday, May 3, 2008 8:30 AM - 10:30 AM US Society for NeuroscienceYoung Investigator Award to a foreign scientist. Location: Regency Ballroom He serves among others on the editorial board of J Neurosci (reviewing editor), Brain Structure & Function, NeuroSignals, Neural Development, HFSP Journal Chair: Raquel Gur and Neuron. 700. Translating Between Genes, Brain, and 697. Experience and Brain Development Behavior: “Top-Down” and “Bottom-Up” Searches Holly Cline for Mechanisms in Schizophrenia and Williams Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY Syndrome Hollis Cline is the Robertson Professor of Neuroscience at Cold Spring Harbor Karen Berman Laboratory. She is a recent NIH Director’s Pioneer Awardee, is on the Board Section on Integrative Neuroimaging, National Institute of Mental of Scientific Counselors for the NINDS and a previous Counselor of the Health, Bethesda, MD Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Cline’s research investigates mechanisms of brain development using in vivo imaging, electrophysiological recordings and Dr. Berman is the Chief of the Section on Integrative Neuroimaging in the molecular manipulations. She is particularly interested in the role of experience Clinical Brain Disorders Branch and the Genes, Cognition, and Psychosis in shaping or modifying brain circuitry. Program at the National Institutes of Health, NIMH Intramural Research Program. After receiving her M.D. degree at St. Louis University, she 698. Tuning up Circuits: Brain Waves and Immune undertook a medical internship at Washington University in St. Louis and had Genes residency training in psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Berman also completed residency training in nuclear medicine at the NIH Carla J. Shatz Warren G. Magnusen Clinical Center and is board certified in both psychiatry and nuclear medicine. Among other awards, she has received the A.E. Bennett Stanford University, Stanford, CA Award for Neuropsychiatric Research of the Society of Biological Psychiatry. Dr. Berman’s research group conducts translational investigations, using Carla Shatz is Professor of Biological Sciences and Neurobiology and the Director multimodal neuroimaging to bridge the gap between neurogenetic, molecular, of Stanford University’s Bio-X program. She studies how our early experiences cellular, and system-level mechanisms of brain dysfunction and the cognitive change brain circuits during critical periods of learning and development. She and behavioral manifestations of neurosychiatric disorders neurodevelopmental received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Harvard Medical School and has held and genetic sources such as schizophrenia and Williams syndrome, as well of faculty appointments at Stanford, UC Berkeley and Harvard Medical School, other conditions impacting cognition such as normal aging. They also study where she was Chairwoman of the Department of Neurobiology until 2007. Her the effects of gonadal steroid hormones on brain function. This body of work neuroscience research has advanced understanding of how connections between has been published in Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, the Journal of Clinical eye and brain are tuned up by use. She was the first to observe how, during fetal Investigation, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the development, the eye tests its connections to the brain’s visual processing regions Journal of Neuroscience. by sending and resending waves of electrical activity through nerve cells across the retina. She has served as the President of the 38,000 member Society for Neuroscience, and has received many honors and awards, including being elected PRESIDENTIAL INVITED LECTURE a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. Saturday, May 3, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Location: Regency Ballroom 699. Critical Period Brain Development and Disorders Chair: Raquel Gur Takao Hensch Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 701. Mental Disorders as Developmental Brain Disorders Takao K. Hensch is joint Professor of Neurology (Children’s Hospital Boston) at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Thomas R. Insel (Center for Brain Science) at Harvard University. After his undergraduate studies on sleep mechanisms with Dr. J Allan Hobson at Harvard, he was a student NIMH, Bethesda, MD of Dr. Masao Ito at the Univ Tokyo (MPH) and Fulbright Fellow with Dr. Thomas R. Insel, M.D., is Director of the National Institute of Mental Health Wolf Singer at the Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research, prior to receiving a (NIMH), which leads the nation’s research effort to understand, treat, and prevent PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California San Francisco in 1996 mental disorders. Appointed as Director in 2002, Dr. Insel’s association with working with Dr. Michael Stryker. He then helped to launch the RIKEN Brain NIMH actually spans over two decades, as he began his research career at the Science Institute as Lab Head for Neuronal Circuit Development then served Institute in 1979, leaving it in 1994 to become Professor of Psychiatry at Emory as Group Director since 2000. Hensch’s research focuses on critical periods in University in Atlanta, Georgia. While at Emory he founded and led the Center for brain development. By applying cellular and molecular biology techniques to Behavioral Neuroscience, and continued his groundbreaking line of research, begun www.sobp.org/journal Saturday Abstracts BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2008;63:1S-301S 223S at NIMH, on the molecular basis of social behaviors. Among Dr. Insel’s many scientific achievements, he is perhaps best known for his research on oxytocin and WORKSHOP affiliative behaviors. Dr. Insel identified the important role of neuropeptides such Re-Formulation and Novel Tests of the Dopamine as oxytocin or vasopressin for social attachment in comparative neurobiological studies of monogamous mammals. This discovery led to greater understanding of Hypothesis of Schizophrenia the molecular and cellular basis of parental behavior, pair bonding, and aggression. Saturday, May 3, 2008 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM A prolific author, Dr. Insel has published over 200 scientific articles and four Location: Ticonderoga books. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the recipient of several awards. Dr. Chair: Vishwajit L. Nimgaonkar* Insel graduated from the combined B.A.-M.D. program at Boston University. Moderator: Robin M. Murray** *Supported by R01MH56232 **Supported by MRC WORKSHOP Use of Epigenetic, Genetic, and Molecular 703. Re-Formulation and Novel Tests of the Approaches in Suicide Research Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia Saturday, May 3, 2008 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM 1 2 Location: Yorktown Robin M. Murray , Vishwajit L. Nimgaonkar , David A. Collier3, Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg4 Chair: Yogesh Dwivedi* 1Institute of Psychiatry, 2University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, Moderator: Ghanshyam N. Pandey** 3Institute of Psychiatry, London, United Kingdom, 4Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany *Supported by RO1MH068777 **Supported by RO1MH56528 Much schizophrenia research has been driven by the heuristic ‘Dopamine (DA) hypothesis’, but the original simplistic formulation of DA hyperfunction has 702. Use of Epigenetic, Genetic, and Molecular never been satisfactory. There is growing evidence for regional differences and intricate homeostatic mechanisms, prompting more sophisticated formulations Approaches in Suicide Research in recent years. Genetic association studies offer the opportunity to validate Gustavo Turecki1, Karoly Mirnics2, Dan Rujescu3, the DA hypothesis from an etiological perspective, but early association studies tested one or only a handful of polymorphisms, in small samples at 4 Yogesh Dwivedi conventional DA loci. The current availability of large samples and high 1McGill Universuty, Canada, Montreal, QC, Canada, 2Vanderbilt throughput analytic methods offer the opportunity to re-evaluate the DA University and VU Kennedy Center, Nashville, TN, 3Ludwig- hypothesis from several perspectives. Though the focus of our symposium Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany, 4University of Illinois at will be on genetic epidemiologic studies, we aim to weave in perspectives Chicago, Chicago, IL from complementary arenas in order to enable a lively debate, re-synthesis and reformulation of the DA hypothesis. The panel will include evaluations Novel mechanistic concepts of the neurobiology of suicide are rapidly evolving of the DA hypothesis from a genome-wide vantage, including genome-wide based on studies conducted in postmortem brain or in peripheral tissues analyses, focused candidate gene studies, studies of environmental factors of patients with suicidal ideation or of suicide attempters. One such