Letter from the President

Dear ISPNE Members and Friends,

The weeks have been full since the conclusion of our very successful annual meeting in San Francisco, holding excitement about the future of ISPNE, but also sadness over the death of our dear friend and colleague, Elizabeth Young, Secretary-General of ISPNE. I would like to share with you now a conference recap provided by the Local Organizing Committee for our San Francisco Conference.

Sincerely yours,

Isabella Heuser

Modern Psychoneuroendocrinology: Interactions with Genes, Health, and Longevity

The 2009 ISPNE conference in San Francisco held four packed days of excellent science and dialogue that reunited a worldwide community of researchers and welcomed new young investigators. The 212 attendees included many students, which was a great outreach to the next generation. We hope they remain part of our vibrant community.

This year’s meeting was kicked off on Thursday afternoon with the annual awards ceremony. Christian Otte, the 2009 Curt Richter Awardee, gave a wonderful acceptance speech highlighting his seminal work with mineralocorticoid function in major depression. Christian represents the ISPNE mission well, applying his research to mental and physical health with an interdisciplinary research program that spans the oceans, and which has included many ISPNE members as mentors along the way.

Day 2 was kicked off with a double hitter: Rachel Yehuda presented clinical data and Jonathon Seckl presented basic and clinical data on the role of glucocorticoid metabolism in states of stress and trauma. Jonathan gave a tour de force demonstrating the impact of prenatal programming on steroid biosynthetic pathways and the later development of metabolic dysregulation.  Rachel relayed her several decade long search to better understand PSTD and adaptation of the HPA axis and shared exciting new data on epigenetic affects on glucorticoid regulation that contribute to intergenerational transmission of PTSD. Provocative as ever, Yehuda questioned the interpretation of early handling studies, suggesting that the HPA axis profile of handled rat pups (high glucocorticoid feedback, low cortisol) may represent adaptation to stress, a traumatized profile, even though it appears to be ‘stress resilient.’ Continue »