Planned Meetings

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will participate in a number of sessions at the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) annual National Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C., February 11-14, 2008. Dr. Timothy Condon, Deputy Director, NIDA, will conduct a workshop with Moira O'Brien, DESPR, NIDA on Emerging Trends in Drug Abuse: Monitoring to Stay Ahead of the Curve and Dr. Frank Vocci, Director, DPMCDA, NIDA will conduct a workshop on Adolescent Smoking: Time to Act. In addition, NIDA Director, Dr. Nora Volkow, will participate in a plenary session.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is organizing a program at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., May 3-8, 2008. A number of NIDA staff and NIDA researchers will participate in several symposia and workshops at the upcoming meeting on a wide range of topics such as, Drug Abuse, HIV, and the Brain; Gene-Environment-Development Interactions: Implications for Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Disorders; and Diagnosis and Treatment of Adolescents/Young Adults with Substance Use Disorders. This program will build on previous tracks NIDA has been conducting at the APA Annual meeting since 1998.

NIDA will host the seventh Blending Conference at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 2-3, 2008. This 2-day conference is designed to bring clinicians and researchers together to examine the most up-to-date scientific drug abuse and addiction findings and their application to clinical practice.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is organizing a program at this year's American Psychological Association (APA) Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, August 14-17, 2008. A number of NIDA staff throughout the Institute are involved in organizing and/or presenting on a wide range of session topics. NIDA will also co-sponsor an Early Career Investigator Poster Session with APA's Divisions 28 and 50 and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) as part of the two Divisions' Social Hour.

Drs. Harold Gordon and Steven Grant of DCNBR together with Dr. Kevin Quinn of NIMH are organizing a workshop entitled, Imaging Imagining--The Mirror System and Beyond: Neural Representation of the Self and Others. The meeting will be sponsored, in part by the Office of Science Policy and Communications (OSPC) and by the National Institute of Mental Health. The purpose is to explore the latest work of imaging those aspects of cognition that induce activation of brain circuitry including the mirror neuron system. These concepts are important in drug abuse, for example to understand motivations (e.g., craving) underlying decisions to seek and take drugs.