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Neural Control and Autonomic
Regulation Newsletter - Summer 2004

Experimental Biology 2004 was a great success for NCAR.  We sponsored a successful Symposium (Neural Control of Venous Capacitance Function in Health and Disease) and three Featured Topics (Stress, Mood and Autonomic Function, Dysautonomias: Clinical Disorders of the Autonomic Nervous System, Links Between Nitric Oxide and other Transmitters in Central Cardiovascular Regulation), as well  as the Carl Ludwig Distinguished Lecture delivered by Dr. Cliff Saper.  Thanks to Greg Fink, Bill Talman, David Goldstein, Kim Johnson and Angela Grippo for organizing and chairing these sessions and to Cliff for presenting such a stimulating lecture.  NCAR also programmed 168 abstracts, organized into a dozen well-attended poster sessions.  Based on section memberships, NCAR had one of the highest abstract submission rates.  There were numerous other Symposia, Featured Topics, and Poster Sessions scheduled across the five days of the meeting that were of interest to NCAR members.  Overall, APS programmed 2,437 abstracts and 3,952 APS members attended the meeting. 

Congratulations to our section award winners:

NCAR New Investigator Award:  Gail D. Thomas

NCAR Research Recognition Awards:  Timothy Bailey, Eric Lazartigues, Kevin D. Monahan, Thad E. Wilson

Michael J Brody Award:  De-Pei Li

Proctor and Gamble Award: Matthew Zimmerman

Congratulations also go to NCAR member Robin Davisson for receiving the Henry Pickering Bowditch Award

 

NCAR Programming for Future EB Meetings

This is the time of year when the NCAR Steering Committee is usually busy with proposals from the NCAR membership for Featured Topics and Symposia for the next EB meeting.  However EB in 2005 will be joint with the IUPS meeting, and the IUPS is organizing the program.  Still, it is not too early to start thinking about EB 2006!  Please start forwarding your ideas for future Symposia and Featured Topics to the NCAR Steering Committee (robin-davisson@iowa.edu).

 

AJP-Reg Strengthens Affiliation with NCAR

The American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, in an effort to strengthen its affiliation with NCAR, has added an NCAR member as an Associate Editor.  Beginning this month, Alan Sved, will assume the responsibilities as an Associate Editor of this journal, and will handle primarily manuscripts on NCAR-related topics.  Each of the APS sections is supposed to be affiliated with an APS journal, and AJP-Reg is the most appropriate journal for NCAR.  NCAR members are encouraged to consider AJP-Reg the official journal of their section and to submit their quality manuscripts to this journal.  If you have comments that you would like to see addressed by the journal, please send them to the journal or directly to Alan (sved@bns.pitt.edu)

 

Text Box: Message from the Trainee Representative

 

 

Angela J. Grippo, Postdoctoral Fellow

The Trainee Advisory Committee, newly established by APS in July of 2003, met at EB to discuss our plans for the upcoming months.  Among others, our immediate goals are (1) to distribute a survey to trainees investigating their specific needs, which will address topics such as mentoring, grant opportunities, compensation and benefits, teaching opportunities, and work/family obligations; (2) to coordinate with the recently established National Postdoctoral Association in an effort to improve and standardize conditions for postdoctoral fellows; and (3) to begin organizing a session relevant to trainees for upcoming EB meetings.  Our committee represents trainees, and therefore we encourage suggestions and ideas.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with any trainee-relevant issues!

Two trainee-related sessions at EB were very informative for students and postdoctoral fellows.  The symposium “Planning a Successful Postdoctoral Position: A Proactive Approach,” sponsored by the APS Career Opportunities in Physiology Committee, included topics such as developing an individualized plan for your training and career as well as career opportunities in science and industry.  The workshop sponsored jointly by the Women in Physiology and Women in Pharmacology Committees, titled “Life After the Ph.D.: Finding a Postdoctoral Fellowship,” addressed practical issues about searching for postdoctoral positions and conducting research.

NCAR Steering Committee Election

Patrice Guyenet has just completed his 3-year term as a member of the NCAR Steering Committee.  Three candidates have agreed to run for this open position: Andy Lawrence, David Randall, and Yvette Tache. APS members with their primary section affiliation as NCAR will receive their electronic ballot soon and may vote until the end of June. [If you want to check your section affiliation or change it to NCAR, this can be done on the APS website (www.The-APS.org).]

Andy Lawrence, Ph.D., NHMRC Senior Research Fellow, Howard Florey Institute, Australia.

Historically, my research focused on the identification of candidate transmitters, particularly at the level of the nucleus tractus solitarius. The focus has recently broadened to include supramedullary nuclei and also to examine autonomic regulation in relation to behavioural change in a multi-disciplinary manner.  I am especially committed to the teaching of neuroscience to undergraduate and postgraduate students.  I firmly believe that we must foster the interest of students, such that we can attract the most talented individuals into research. Given that we are now in an era of genomics and proteomics, I believe that we must be pro-active to maintain interest in central autonomic regulation as there is still so much to learn

David C. Randall, Ph.D., Professor of Physiology, University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

The NCAR section of our society has preserved a program of symposia and other activities that has been well-balanced across topics of interest and methods of approach (i.e., whole animal to cellular and molecular).  I believe it is important to preserve this balance, and, as a member of the steering committee, would work with the other members to organize forums, symposia and summer workshops that reflect this general philosophy.  I believe it is also essential to foster a section that whole-heartedly welcomes individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds, but preserves, both as a section and as a broader society, a healthy sense of our “heritage” as neural/autonomic neural physiologists.  Finally, I will work with the steering committee and the society to maintain our position at the forefront of our discipline as expressed through our meetings, journals and representations to the broader public.

Yvette Tache, Ph.D.:  Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Center for Neurovisceral Sciences, UCLA.

For the past decades my research focused on the brain regulation of autonomic outflow by neuropeptides particularly as it relates to stress-induced alterations of autonomic function, which contributes to the efferent arms of the stress response.  My interest to serve on this committee is to promote the field of integrative regulatory physiology in which the autonomic control is an important component.  I finished serving on several committee of the American Gastroenterology Association including being chair of the Program Committee for the Section on Hormones and Receptors/Brain-Gut Axis and I am familiar with issues related to planning annual program meeting.

[Current members of the Steering Committee are listed on the last page of the Newsletter]

 

Meredith Hay, Organizer
Alan Sved, Co-Organizer

The 9th meeting in this series that started in 1982 will be held in Snowmass Village Colorado this summer.  The Session Topics include: 

  • Brain Mechanisms and Osmoregulation

  • Body Fluid Regulation and Cardiovascular Disease

  • Corticosteroids in Central Regulation of Cardiovascular Function

  • Sex Steroids in Central Regulation of Cardiovascular Function

  • Respiratory Challenges and Neural Control of the Circulation

  • Sleep Apnea and Central Cardio-Respiratory Integration

  • Exercise Conditioning and Cardiovascular Regulation

  • Cardiovascular Regulation in the Challenges of Thermoregulation and Energy Balance

  • Psychological Stress and Cardiovascular Regulation

The entire program can be viewed at the conference website (http://src.faseb.org/).

Register on-line by June 1.   STUDENTS AND POSTDOCS ARE ENCOURAGED TO SUBMIT ABSTRACTS AND ATTEND.  Student and postdoc attendance is very important.  For each session, three students/postdocs submitting abstracts relevant to the session topic will be selected to give a 10 minute oral presentation of their poster/abstract.  These will be selected prior to the meeting from the submitted abstracts.

 

For more information, check out the website (http://src.faseb.org/) or contact Meredith Hay (HayM@missouri.edu) or Alan Sved (sved@bns.pitt.edu)

 

 

NEURAL CONTROL AND AUTONOMIC REGULATION SECTION STEERING COMMITTEE