10th International Catecholamine Symposium (XICS), Asilomar Conference Grounds, September 8-13, 2012. The XICS will bring together about 400 basic, disease-oriented, and patient-oriented researchers to present and discuss advances in understanding of catecholamine-related disorders. Catecholamines are well known to play crucial roles in a wide variety of conditions that impact public health, including drug and alcohol abuse and neurologic, psychiatric, cardiovascular, and endocrine disorders. Since catecholamine research formats span from subcellular fractions to cells and neurons to animal models and patients, research on this small chemical family is truly translational. The general field of catecholamine research has not undergone comprehensive review for 10 years. During this interval, a tremendous amount of new information has accrued about the important involvement of catecholamine systems in a host of topics of direct interest to multiple Institutes of the NIH, such as NIDA, NINDS, and NIDDK. The XICS will emphasize integration of basic science with clinical pathophysiology, by a program centering on disease- oriented research about catecholamine systems. The ten carefully selected Themes of the XICS are synthesis and storage, release and reuptake, metabolism, receptors, neurology, psychiatry and psychology, drug abuse, peripheral catecholamine systems, integrative medicine, and interactions with other transmitters. Participants in the XICS will include an international, diverse mixture of senior and junior scientists, pre- and post-doctoral trainees, minorities and students, and patients with catecholamine-related disorders. A specific minority action program is in place. This application conveys five Specific Aims designed to implement our goals in the practical setting of the meeting.
Members of the catecholamine chemical family-dopamine, norepinephrine, and adrenaline-play many key roles in normal physiology, drug effects, stress, and a variety of important neurological, cardiovascular, psychiatric, and endocrine disorders. The overall goal of the XICS is to provide a comprehensive update of advances in understanding of catecholamine biosynthesis, trafficking, storage, release, metabolism, actions, and involvement in the pathophysiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of catecholamine-related disorders, such as Parkinson disease, drug addiction, and diabetes. The XICS will continue a remarkably successful series that began at the NIH in Bethesda about a half century ago.
