National Institute on Drug Abuse
Director's Report to the National Advisory Council on Drug
Abuse
May, 1997
Planned Meetings
On May 30, 1997 NIDA will hold a "Town Meeting" in Chicago,
Illinois in partnership with the City of Chicago in order to discuss with
policy makers, organizations, community leaders, and practitioners current
science-based knowledge about drug abuse and addiction treatment and prevention.
Two NIH research groups, the NIH AIDS Interest Group and the Behavioral
and Social Sciences Interest Group, are jointly sponsoring a mini-symposium
on "Drug Abuse and AIDS: Research from the Behavioral and Social Sciences"
to be held Thursday, July 31, 1997. NIDA staff have been involved in planning
this event in conjunction with staff from the Office of AIDS Research and
Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research. The mini-symposium will
cover the epidemiology of HIV, drug abuse, and related risk behaviors; a
behavioral overview of addiction; animal studies of the behavioral consequences
of addiction and HIV infection; impulsivity and risk behavior; social network
analysis; ethnography; and intervention research on risk reduction and outreach,
needle and syringe access and exchange, and drug abuse treatment.
Naimah Weinberg, M.D., ERB/DEPR, is organizing a workshop on child psychiatric
conditions in the etiology of drug abuse. The meeting,"Childhood Psychopathologic
Risk Factors for Drug Abuse: Deficits and Mechanisms" will be held
in the Washington area on July 9 and 10, 1997. Experts in the areas of child
and adolescent psychiatric disorders, comorbidity, etiology, temperament,
neuropsychology, epidemiology, behavior genetics, and family dynamics will
participate.
DEPR's Community Research Branch along with the Division of Clinical
and Services Research and the NIDA Office on AIDS is planning a meeting
to synthesize the findings from NIDA-funded HIV prevention research. The
meeting will be held in Flagstaff, Arizona on August 4 and 5, 1997.
DEPR, DCSR, MDD, DBR and the ARC are planning a national conference on
research related to heroin to be held on September 29 and 30, 1997 at the
Hyatt-Crystal City. The objective of the conference is to increase the understanding
and heighten awareness of heroin addiction: nature, extent and changing
trends in use patterns; biological and behavioral bases; consequences; and
prevention and treatment. In addition to NIH researchers, the audience is
intended to include key prevention, treatment and criminal justice leaders
and decision makers and practitioner groups.
Cognitive Science Symposium sponsored by the Behavioral Sciences Research
Branch, DBR - "Cognitive Science Research: Applications to Drug Abuse",
to be held at the College on Problems of Drug Dependence meeting in Nashville
TN on June 17, 1997. Presentations will cover animal cognition, drug and
alcohol effects on mood and on cognitive abilities such as information processing.
NIDA/American Psychological Society Sponsored Symposium -- An all-day
satellite meeting entitled Cognitive Science Research: More Than Thinking
About Drug Abuse will be held at the Washington Hilton Hotel on May 23,
1997. The meeting, sponsored by the NIDA's Behavioral Science Working Group,
will feature many distinguished cognitive researchers who will speak on
the role of cognitive science in understanding the problem of drug abuse
and addiction. Topics include animal cognition, the effects of drugs of
abuse on cognitive ability, information processing, social cognition, and
cognitive aspects of drug treatment and therapy.
American Psychological Society Federal Funding Poster Session -- NIDA
staff from the Basic, Clinical and Review sections will be available at
the Federal Funding Poster Session on May 24 at the annual meeting of the
American Psychological Society.
Basic Behavioral and Cognitive Factors in HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse --
This workshop sponsored by the Behavioral Sciences Research Branch (Division
of Basic Research) will be held in the Washington D.C. area on July 29 and
30, 1997. The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers within
and outside of the drug abuse research community to explore how basic research
in particular can be profitably employed to understand the behavioral and
cognitive antecedents of HIV infection, and the interactive effects of HIV
and drug use in addicts.
Society for Neuroscience Evening Symposium: What Do We Really Know About
Mouse Behavior? -- sponsored by the Behavioral Science Working Group. Jacqueline
Crawley (NIMH) and Cindy Miner (NIDA) as co-chairs will host speakers on
mouse species behavioral differences, rat:mouse differences, behavioral
paradigms as used to evaluate transgenic and knockout mice, and mouse ethobiology
and behavior.
The MDD Pharmacology and Toxicology Branch will hold a review of progress
under the first year of its cardiotoxicology contract. One of the key aspects
of this contract is to develop methods to evaluate the cardiovascular effects
of potential treatment agents in the presence of cocaine. Thus, the contractor
will present a review of the progress on this phase of the contract. The
contractor's accomplishments/planned activities will be assessed by a group
of consultants who are actively engaged in preclinical cardiovascular research.
Staff from the Medications Development Division will attend and participate
in a day-long satellite meeting on "Cocaine and a Changing Brain."
at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in October. A stellar cast of speakers
has been assembled including Bertha Madras, Frank White, Nancy Zahniser,
Bert Weiss, and Nora Volkow.
For additional information about NIDA send e-mail to Information@nida.nih.gov
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