Complexity and Diversity in Catecholamine Neurobiology: From Molecule to Circuits to Behavior

The 2019 GRC on Catecholamines will focus on cutting-edge developments in catecholamine research from a broad range of approaches, from molecular biology to cellular physiology, and from computational neuroscience to behavior. One of the characteristics of the field is that neuronal systems using catecholamines have much in common, although investigators who focus on particular catecholamines or on different actions of the same catecholamine are often unaware of complementary aspects of catecholamine research. It is increasingly apparent that continued progress will require integrated approaches in studies of catecholamine biology, function and dysfunction. Thus, molecular biologists are being drawn to more integrated systems approaches and behavioral biologists are exploiting many molecular approaches, and many are using increasingly sophisticated quantitative and computational approaches. In particular, the development of cell-type-specific targeting approaches in recent years has permitted much more detailed and specific approaches to understanding catecholamine function, revealing new complexities in organization and function, an important focus of the 2019 sessions. The past years have also witnessed a tremendous advance in our understanding of neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders, including drug abuse, affective disorders, and diseases with catecholamine neuron degeneration such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Sophisticated behavioral measures combined with elegant molecular, cellular and systems approaches, have revealed important conserved mechanisms at the cellular, circuit, and behavioral levels across the phylogenetic scale from drosophila to humans. These studies provide new insights into modulation of innate and learned behavior. We plan to highlight these new advances, providing a unique opportunity to discuss recent progress in the understanding of catecholamine system contributions to health and disease. To achieve these goals, the 2019 conference will include researchers at the forefront of catecholamine-related research, both junior and senior, presenting primarily new, unpublished research encompassing basic mechanisms of catecholamine neurotransmission, integrated approaches to understand anatomy, physiology and behavior, and studies of neurological and psychiatric pathology and treatment.