This award supports an international workshop entitled: ?Steroid Hormone Receptors and Neural Sex Differences? to be held in Gifu, Japan in September, 2008. The workshop will bring together speakers from the United States and Japan. Drs. Nobuhara Harada (Fujita Health University) and Mitsuhiro Kawata (Kyoto Prefectural Univ.) are the primary organizers from the Japan side. Given the overwhelming recent advances in the field of neuroscience and steroid hormone biology, the goal of this workshop is to reinvigorate collaborations and provide new linkages between neuroscientists in the United States and Japan. The workshop will be held over a 3 ½ day period with subsequent visits for US scientists to laboratory facilities in the Nagoya, Japan region. The workshop will cover the following topics: (1) Sex steroid hormone action in the brain: transcriptional regulation and cellular functions; (2) Alternative mechanisms of steroid hormone action in brain: rapid membrane and ligand-independent responses; (3) Role of G-protein coupled receptors and their signaling partners in the control of reproduction; (4) Regulation of GnRH neurons and central control of steroid hormone secretion; (5) Developmental effects of steroid hormones: sexual differentiation of the brain; and (6) Steroid hormones and adult sexually differentiated function.
The award also supports the travel of young investigators (postdoctoral and graduate student level) to present their recent research findings in workshop panels and poster sessions, thereby allowing them to interact with new and established investigators in this growing field.
