Planned Meetings

NIDA is once again organizing a mini-convention, Frontiers in Addiction Research, at this year's Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meeting. In addition to the presentation of the 2008 Waletzky Memorial Award, the mini-convention will include an Early Career Investigators Poster Session, as well as presentations on the following topics:

• Epigenetics and Brain Function
• Multilevel Multimodal Imaging of Gene Expression, Cells, Neurons, and Circuitry
• Will Power: What Really Governs Our Choices, and
• Cortical Development and Substance Abuse

The mini-convention will take place at the Renaissance Washington DC hotel on Friday, November 14, 2008. NIDA will also have an exhibit booth at the SfN meeting, November 16-19, 2008.

Cecelia Spitznas, Shoshana Kahana and Lisa Onken of DCNBR/BITB in collaboration with Eve Reider and Elizabeth Robertson of DESPR/PRB are collaborating with other NIH institutes, and representatives of the DOD and VA to develop a meeting for Fall 2008. The meeting's working title is Designing a Research Agenda to Prevent and Treat Substance Abuse and Related Consequences for Military Service Members, Veterans and their Families. The meeting will help determine next steps for research related to actual and potential substance abuse and related comorbidities which are consequences of the Afghan and Iraq wars.

Dr. Steven Grant, DCNBR, and Dr. Rita Goldstein (Brookhaven National Laboratories) co-organized and will co-chair with a symposium entitled "Functional Neuroimaging Evidence for a Brain Network Underlying Impaired Insight (into illness) in Drug Addiction" at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience to be held in Washington, DC on November 15-29, 2008. The speakers will be A.D. "Bud" Craig (Barrow Neurological Institute), Antoine Bechara (University of Southern California)., Hugh Garavan (Trinity College), and Anna Rose Childress (University of Pennsylvania).

The next National CTN Steering Committee Meetings are planned for October 21-23, 2008 in Bethesda, MD.