During the past decade it has become increasingly clear that information transfer from neuron to neuron, the hallmark of brain function, requires the active participation of other cell types. The biology of glial cells is poorly understood, and glial-neuronal and glial-glial interactions are essential for many critical functions in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Non-neuronal cells clearly have vital roles in neuronal development, activity, plasticity, and recovery from injury, and recent studies have shown that glia are not simply the matrix in which neurons are embedded. Rather, they are endowed with a diverse assortment of ionic channels, neurotransmitter receptors, and transport mechanisms that both enable the glia to respond to many of the same signals acting on neurons and also to modulate the neuronal response. Moreover, glia secrete cytokines, growth factors, matrix, and other trophic factors that dictate long and short term survival of neurons as well as the elaboration and retraction of synaptic connections.

This conference will bring together investigators working on glial biology and neuron-glial and glia-glia interactions from a variety of perspectives in a discussion with strong emphasis on glial biology and cell-cell interactions, not on development per se or specific properties of different cell types, which are more common subjects of other conferences. Interactions among these researchers for the first time would be expected to lead to novel insights into roles of glia in nervous system function and to focus research on resolving controversies and pushing forward the frontiers in this new subdiscipline of Neuroscience. For example, much more is known about glia-neuron interactions at the excitatory glutamatergic synapse compared to other neurotransmitter systems, and this conference should stimulate expansion of cross-disciplinary studies of cell-cell interactions in other transmitter pathways. As nervous system research becomes increasing integrative, the interactions between different cell types must be included in data analysis and system response models. The first glia biology/cell-cell interaction conference is designed to be broad in its scope, and it should provide the initial step in discussing and integrating current research. Although most work involves astrocyte-neuron or astrocyte-astrocyte interactions, cell-cell interactions involving microglia and oligodendrocytes will become increasingly important, so the term glial biology is, therefore, retained in the title.

The conference is expected to achieve the following objectives: initiate an interactive dialogue between scientists in different fields of glial biology, glia-neuron and glia-glia interactions by providing a long-term forum for presentation of cutting-edge work in selected fields to a diverse group of leading researchers; suggest new integrative approaches to solve timely problems, identify controversies, and foster collaborative projects in multi-disciplinary research; and bring to the attention of the neuroscience community the importance of the glial cells and their interactions with other cell types in brain functions, and in modeling interactions of these cell types in functional systems of neuronal activity.