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The Gatlinburg Conference

March 08-10, 2017   |   Organized by: UCDAVIS Mind Institute

Description

About the Gatlinburg Conference

The Gatlinburg Conference continues its tradition as one of the premier conferences in the United States for behavioral scientists conducting research in intellectual and related developmental disabilities.  The Gatlinburg Conference on Research and Theory in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities was established in the 1960's.

Goals of the conference:

  • Promote exchange of information regarding the latest findings in behavioral & biobehavioral research on the causes, consequences, prevention, and treatment of intellectual disability and related developmental disabilities.
  • Further our understanding of the manifestations of those disabilities.
  • Better characterize the contexts in which people with disabilities and their families live.
  • Promote collaboration among behavioral scientists.
  • Provide a major training resource for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and early career faculty in the field of intellectual disabilities research.

This conference is supported by grant number R13HD084155 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke as well as the National Institute on Aging.




Jacqueline N. Crawley, Ph.D, University of California, Davis

Jacqueline N. Crawley, Ph.D., received her undergraduate education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and graduated with a degree in biology. Her dissertation research was completed in the departments of zoology and psychology at the University of Maryland in College Park. Postdoctoral research in neuropsychopharmacology was conducted at Yale University School of Medicine. In 1979 she joined the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland to establish a behavioral neuroscience laboratory. Her research program investigated animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s. She has published over 240 peer reviewed papers, 95 chapters and reviews, 5 books, and was editor of the journal Neuropeptides. Dr. Crawley’s sole-authored book, What’s Wrong With My Mouse? Behavioral Phenotyping of Transgenic and Knockout Mice, is in broad use by neuroscientists and the biomedical research community.

James McCracken, M.D., David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Dr. McCracken is the Joseph Campbell Professor of Child Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the UCLA NPI-Semel Institute (formerly the Neuropsychiatric Institute) in Los Angeles. Dr. McCracken is the principal investigator of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Center, "Translational Research to Enhance Cognitive Control," which aims to develop and test innovative treatments for cognitive defects associated with child psychiatric illness. His other current areas of research include family-genetic studies of childhood disorders and the testing of new pharmacologic treatments for a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders in children, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety disorders.

Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, M.D., Columbia University

Dr. Veenstra-VanderWeele is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who uses molecular and translational neuroscience research tools in the pursuit of new treatments for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). As a predoctoral fellow, medical student, and resident, he trained in human molecular genetics in the laboratory of Edwin H. Cook at the University of Chicago. He expanded his research experience with a postdoctoral research fellowship in molecular neuroscience with Randy Blakely and Jim Sutcliffe at Vanderbilt University, with the goal to develop mouse models of social dysfunction and repetitive behavior. Currently, his molecular lab focuses on the serotonin, oxytocin and glutamate systems in genetic mouse models related to ASD and OCD. While developing a molecular neuroscience research program, he also built a clinical/translational research program to study new treatments for ASD and Fragile X Syndrome. He moved both arms of his research program to Columbia University, the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Center for Autism and the Developing Brain in 2014 to continue to pursue novel treatments for children with these challenging conditions.

Michela Fagiolini, Ph.D, Boston Children's Hospital

Neurons acquire multiple functional properties through an experience-dependent development during a limited time in early postnatal life (“critical periods”). Our research focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying this fundamental process by combining molecular techniques with electrophysiological and behavioral analysis of systems level phenomena in vivo. At Children’s Hospital Boston, we concentrate on elucidating the interaction between environment and epigenetic mechanisms in the etiology of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).

Registration Dates

February 20-21, 2017

Location

The Hotel Contessa

306 W. Market Street

San Antonio, TX US

Google map of address

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