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Symposium
on Channels and Synapses: Chemistry Meets Neurological Diseases - Joint
Meeting of Bio-Medical Societies of Argentina. The ISN symposium: Channels and Synapses: Chemistry Meets Neurological Diseases and the ISN Plenary Conference took place in the frame of the Joint Meeting of Bio-Medical Societies of Argentina, in Mar del Plata, Province of Buenos Aires As, on November 18th, 2004. Dr. Roberto Malinow from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, USA; Dr Jeffrey Noebels from Baylor College of Medicine, USA; Dr. Daniela Pietrobon from University of Padova, Italy; and Dr. Shin Hee Sup from the Center of Calcium and Learning, Seoul Korea had initially agreed to participate. The participation of these very well recognized scientists prompted the organizing committee of the Joint Meeting to offer extra time for the ISN symposium. Thus, we decided to prolong the symposium in the form of a plenary conference. The symposium started at 930 AM and finished at 11.30 AM. It was follow by a one hour plenary lecture. The auditorium for more than 700 attendants was full. At the end of each presentation a lively and interesting discussion took place. The symposium was focused on calcium channels biochemistry, physiology and molecular biology and their role in neurological syndromes like ataxia, migraine and epilepsy. The original program included Dr Jeffrey Noebles who decline to participate for personal reasons. Since it was not possible to replace him at short notice I decided to include myself as a speaker. I presented an overview of the recent advances in channelopathies in the central nervous system and my recent work on synaptic facilitation recently published in J. of Neuroscience. Dr. Daniela Pietrobon presented an excellent review on neurobiology of migraine and data on the first animal model of this disorder. The consequences of familial hemiplegic migraine type-1 on Cav2.1 channels at their endogenous level of expression in neurons of a knock-in mouse model carrying the FHM-1 R192Q mutation were presented. Dr. Shin Hee -Sup presented his work on different ataxic and epileptic transgenic mouse generated in his laboratory and the role of T-type Ca2+ channels in the sensory gating in the brain. Finally Dr. Roberto Malinow gave a fantastic review on synaptic plasticity and an excellent report on the ways by which synaptic receptors (AMPA-Rs and NMDA-Rs) are added (LTP) or removed (LTD) from synapses. I would like to thanks the ISN for supporting these activities.
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