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European Brain and Behavior Society Satellite: Stress, the story of our social lives
A satellite event of the FENS Forum 2012, Barcelona
13 July 2012 - Barcelona
LATE REGISTRATIONS STILL POSSIBLE – FOR ATTENDANCE ONLY
For queries, please contact Guillaume Poirier
 Developmental and chronic adversity can powerfully affect mental health, too often producing disturbances that include anxiety, depression, and antisocial behaviour. Violence is most overt and easily quantifiable. For example, estimates of 4400 deaths per day as a result of "intentional acts of self-directed, interpersonal, or collective violence"[1] are staggering, and attention devoted to violence, its personal and collective health and economic consequences has been increasing in the last few decades. Other mental health consequences associated with adversity may take many pernicious, less tangible forms yet all contribute to the development of psychopathologies—in turn affecting intimate partners, relatives, entire communities and impinging on societal well-being and productivity.
While most efforts have been largely reactive, certain initiatives are emerging to prevent developmental trajectories leading to serious mental health problems. Mental illnesses are complex and probably result from a combination of genetic, environmental, psychological, and developmental factors. In line with the contemporary thrust for a personalised medicine, individual characteristics are proving critical in understanding the processes involved in the development of mental illness and successful interventions targeting this collective challenge. In its infancy, in order to be fruitful the personalised approach needs to integrate and distil evidence from a large variety of disciplines.
CaixaForum Barcelona
In order to stimulate cutting-edge research in the field and incite innovative partnerships to help unravel the mechanisms leading to harmonious social relations, this meeting will focus on stress and social relations. Engaging speakers with internationally recognized expertise in the fields of developmental, neural, emotional, as well as cognitive function have accepted our invitation and will present social interactions as both cause and consequence of adversity. Specifically, topics will target the effects of adversity on socio-affective behaviours from different angles, including developmental time courses, decision-making, brain structure, neurogenesis, and plasticity, gene-environment interaction in vulnerability and resilience, as well as transgenerational transmission, and finally the sociocultural meaning of violence.
 A variety of perspectives will be represented at the meeting, including both clinical and animal model, in order to promote stimulating discussions and foster collaboration on the mechanisms underlying the effects on psychological mechanisms and social behaviour of stress and adversity in the life of an individual, and of their lineage (prenatal, postnatal and transgenerational effects). Innovative research by attendees will also be given an outlet by selecting a limited number of outstanding submissions for brief oral presentations.
Amongst many important and more traditional and oft addressed themes, new lines of research on genetics, brain development and neurobiology, and the complex interplay between these domains, as well as better understanding of the development of social behaviour pathologies and of the mechanisms that underlie effective and ineffective interventions may prove critical to our curbing of mental illness. From molecules to society, such is our aim.
Date: 13 July 2012
Place: Barcelona
Name of organizers:
- Guillaume Poirier (ÉPFL, Switzerland)
- Richard Tremblay (University College Dublin, Ireland ; Université de Montréal, Canada)
Name and address of the contact person: Guillaume Poirier
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