The 30th Annual Meeting of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology ========================================================================== * Kevin F. Casey * Richard J. Beninger * Usoa Busto * Ralph E. Tarter * Marco Leyton ## Banff, Alberta, June 15 to June 19, 2007 Some highlights of the 30th Annual Meeting of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CCNP) are briefly described here. A full report is available online. ## Presidential symposium The Presidential Symposium was entitled “Psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience in the 21st century: where do we go from here?” and featured presentations by the keynote speaker, Dr. Tom Insel, as well as by Dr. Remi Quirion, Dr. H. Christian Fibiger and Dr. Harold Robertson, who was also the session’s chair. Each of the speakers brought a critical eye to our disciplines, asking in essence, Why hasn’t the dramatic increase in our understanding of the nervous system translated into more cures for neuropsychiatric disorders? and What should be changed about how we do things? Innovative examples of what could be possible were described. ## American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) symposium Our American colleagues presented an ACNP member special symposium on the STAR*D trial of antidepressant treatment strategies. The speakers were Dr. John Rush (Symposium Chair), Dr. Dan Pilowsky, Dr. Madhukar Trivedi and Dr. Hussein Manji. Together they conveyed an elegant picture of this ambitious large-scale clinical study. ## European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Our European ECNP colleagues also presented a symposium at this year’s meeting. Again, the topic was antidepressant treatment strategies, but this time, the focus was on potential directions for novel medication targets. The cochairs were Dr. Peter Lesch and Dr. Michel Hamon, and the speakers were Dr. Lesch, Dr. Laurence Lafumey, Dr. Trevor Sharp and Dr. Per Svenningsson. ## Award lectures The 2007 CCNP Heinz Lehmann Award lecture was given by Dr. Hymie Anisman. His talk, entitled “Stress, cytokines and depressive illness,” summarized research investigating effects of the immune system on behavioural and psychological states, including susceptibilities to mood disorders. The 2007 CCNP Innovations Award lecture was given by Dr. Nicholas Barden. In his talk, entitled “Pathways out of darkness: identification of mood disorder genes and their interactions,” he summarized a series of large-scale molecular genetic studies that implicate *P2RX7* in susceptibility to mood disorders. The 2007 CCNP Young Investigator Award lecture was given by Dr. Martin Lepage. In his talk, entitled “Memory and schizophrenia,” he summarized his functional neuroimaging studies of associative and emotional memories in patients with schizophrenia. ## Symposia In addition to the 3 special symposia referred to above, another 7 were held, covering research in the following areas: advances in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, identification and treatment of first-episode psychosis, the role of Δ-FosB in dopamine system plasticity, neuropeptide modulation of mood and motivational states, the transition to addiction and identification of endophenotypes, the role of cAMP and protein kinase A in synaptic plasticity and memory and selected talks from The Next Generation. ## Footnotes * Medical subject headings: psychotic disorders; addictive behaviour; molecular biology. * A full report is available online at [www.cma.ca/jpn](http://www.cma.ca/jpn) * **Competing interests:** None declared. * **Contributors:** Drs. Beninger and Tarter designed the report. Drs. Busto and Leyton aquired the information, which Mr. Casey and Dr. Tarter analyzed. All authors wrote the report, and Dr. Leyton revised it. All authors gave final approval for the article to be published.