This application requests partial funding to support the 1998 FASEB Summer Research Conference of the Neurobiology of Central Nervous System Injury, to be held at the Namosti Conference Center near Portland, Oregon, in June 1998. This is the sixteenth year of FASEB Summer Research conferences, and this conference is the fourth conference in what is planned to be a continuing biennial series. In keeping with the tradition of previous FASEB and Gordon Conferences, the main objective of this conference is to encourage participants from diverse scientific backgrounds to focus their collective expertise in an informal yet intensive series of sessions lasting 5 days, on topics of the greatest current importance and potential fruitfulness in the areas of head injury, spinal cord injury, and cerebral ischemia. The conference attendance will be restricted to 150 participants. Invited speakers will be chosen from among the most productive and stimulating individuals in these research areas. The unique conference format is highly conducive to open and intense scientific interactions. Two 3-hour oral sessions each day are separated by free afternoon time to encourage discussions and interchange of ideas. A commitment to attend the entire symposium is required for each participant. As neither publication of the conference nor formal recording of its presented material is permitted, the intent is that participants be candid in presenting their most recent (including unpublished) data and in offering their ideas and hypotheses in the spirit of trusting collegiality. Session moderators will introduce thematic areas; the speaker's charge will be to avoid recapitulating already published or presented material, but rather to focus on areas of active investigation, emphasizing unsolved questions, problematic issues, and fertile hypotheses. Half of each session will be devoted to open discussion. Thus, the meeting is intended to emphasize critical thinking and thorough discussion. The organizers intent is that this intense, critical approach will have a material effect in stimulating each participant's future research and scientific thought.
