Welcome and thank you for visiting the 2012 APS Conference: Autonomic Regulation of Cardiovascular Function in Health and Disease web site. We are excited to announce that our next conference is being hosted by the American Physiological Society and will be held at the downtown Hilton Omaha hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, July 7—10, 2012.
About the Conference
Over the past 100 years we have acquired a fairly comprehensive understanding of the neural mechanisms that regulate arterial pressure and peripheral resistance. In the past 20 years we have elucidated many cellular and molecular mechanisms that control sympathetic nerve activity. Much of the work has been driven by a lack of understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the development of essential hypertension.
There is little doubt that augmented sympathetic nerve activity contributes to the pathogenesis of a variety of disease states including hypertension, heart failure, diabetes and panic disorders. We now have the capability to understand discrete molecular mechanisms responsible for altering sympathetic nerve activity in disease states. These mechanisms alter specific ion channel function and membrane properties in order to evoke sympatho-excitation.
The conference will focus on many of these mechanisms. Sessions will include the role of the autocrine, paracrine and endocrine mediators in reflexes and areas of the central nervous system that are known to regulate sympathetic function (e.g. the hypothalamus and medulla). Symposia and poster abstracts will focus on reactive oxidant stress, nitric oxide, angiotensin II, angiotensin (1-7), glutamate, GABA and the transcriptional and translational regulation of the receptors for many of these mediators. An important component of this conference will be several sessions on neural mechanisms that mediate sympatho-excitation in hypertension, heart failure, diabetes and panic disorders. These sessions will include talks on studies carried out in both animals and humans. It will be critical to incorporate sessions on human autonomic physiology in order to explore the potential for translational aspects of experimental findings.
Goals and Objectives
The purpose of this conference is to provide a scientific forum for the exchange of ideas and the presentation of the most recent data on the regulation of sympathetic nerve activity in health and disease. Sympathetic activation, while considered a physiologically relevant and important regulator of arterial pressure, blood flow and vascular resistance, is thought to contribute to pathology, if overactive. This is especially true in those conditions that require a high level of sympathetic tone to compensate for an abnormal cardiac output or where sympathetic nervous activity sustains arterial pressure in a range that is clearly detrimental to organ function. It is critical that a comprehensive understanding of the integrative mechanisms that take part in abnormal sympathetic function take place so that more rational therapy for these disorders can be developed.
In this conference we will specifically focus on disorders that have been characterized as involving abnormalities in sympathetic regulation. Furthermore, there will also be an integrative approach to understanding sympathetic regulation and will incorporate genetic, molecular, cellular and whole animal approaches to the topics covered.
Conference Organizing Committee
The dedicated scientists who put together the exciting scientific program are as follows:
Irving H. Zucker, PhD, (Chair)
University of Nebraska Medical Center
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Kaushik P. Patel, PhD, (Co-Chair)
University of Nebraska Medical Center
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Michael J. Joyner, MD
The Mayo Clinic
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Harold D. Schultz, PhD,
University of Nebraska Medical Center
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