Some highlights of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CCNP) are briefly described here. A full report is available online.
Award lectures
The 2006 CCNP Heinz Lehmann Award lecture was given by Dr. Trevor Young. His talk, entitled “Towards an understanding of the treatment of bipolar disorder,” described neuroprotective and antioxidant effects of the major treatments for bipolar mood disorders.
The 2006 CCNP Innovations Award lecture was given by Dr. Rachel Tyndale. In her talk, entitled “Novel regulation and functions for drug metabolizing enzymes in the brain,” she summarized recent evidence that nicotine metabolizing enzymes are present in the brain and that individual differences in their functional activity are affected by polymorphisms of the genes that encode for the enzymes and by drug exposure; the differential enzyme activity can affect subsequent drug intake and vulnerability to addiction.
The 2006 CCNP Young Investigator Award lecture was given by Dr. Stan Floresco. In his talk, entitled “Dopamine regulation of limbic-striatal interplay,” he reviewed cortical input mechanisms that regulate accumbens dopamine release and modulate the transmitter’s behavioural effects.
Symposia
Four symposia were held that covered research in the following areas: the molecular genetics of neurodevelopmental factors for schizophrenia; new treatments and assessment tools for female-specific mood disorders; the neuropharmacology of mood and motivational states; and advances in our understanding of treatment-resistant depression.
Footnotes
A full report is available online at www.cma.ca/jpn
Medical subject headings: bipolar disorder; dopamine; meta-analysis.
Competing interests: None declared.
Contributors: Drs. Leyton and Flores contributed to the conception and design of the report. Drs. Leyton, Flores and Zawertailo contributed to the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data; they critically reviewed the report. All authors wrote the report and gave final approval of its publication.