This proposal requests support for a meeting entitled, """"""""Vestibular Influences on Spatial Orientation,""""""""a satellite to the ninth Annual Meeting of th Society for the Neural Control of Movement. The meeting will be held April 16-19, 1999, at the Princeville Resort in Kauai, Hawaii. This will be a unique meeting on vestibular function. Although there have been several meetings in recent years covering the vestibular system, all have followed a similar pattern-they generally start with the labyrinth and then progress centrally. This meeting will chart exactly the opposite course. The key issues will center around how vestibular inputs are employed during natural behavior, and the selective advantages conveyed by evolution in the system's structure and function. The meeting will focus on central processes, including perception. Indeed, the sequnce of sessions will begin with the perception of spatial orientation, gravity, and motion, and will progress toward behavioral responses to vestibular and multisensory spatial inputs and their underlying neural mechanisms. Exciting new developments in vestibular and multisensory interactions in cortex, the cerebellum, and the brainstem will be explored and discussed, Head/neck as well as oculomotor control will be emphasized in targeted sessions, as will compensation and adaptive plasticity, leading finally to cellular and sub-cellular mechanisms that support neural function and plasticity, in vestibular pathways. This novel approach will fill a logical hole left fallow by other conferences on the vesibular system. Traditional areas will also be represented, however, in the interest of maintaining breadth and scope for the meeting. This will ensure fruitful discussions and interactions among attendees, spanning multiple levels of scientific inquiry. Additional topics include progress in labyrinthine function, influences of postural mechanisms on head and gaze stability, advances in clinical and age-related dysfunction, and contributions of modeling and computational approaches to our under- standing of spatial orientation. Session leaders are all acknowledged leaders in their respective disciplines. They will govern the content of their sessions and select the subtopics and contributors in conjunction with the PI. Both workshop/symposium sessions snd poster presentations will be included, with deliberate emphasis on dedicated discussions and interactions between participants throughout the meeting. Students and post-doctoral fellows are specifically encouraged to attend and participate, and a scholarship program will target and enhance this important aspect of the meeting.
