Insights into the Brain and Aging: Session Introduction

Abstract

I will begin with a quick introduction of the speakers. After I speak will be Dr. Nancy Hopkins, a geneticist in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work focuses on cloning vertebrate devel­ opmental genes by exploiting the zebrafi sh model. This work, over the years, has earned her nomination and accep­ tance into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and most recently the National Acad­ emy of Sciences. She will talk about genetic vulnerabilities associated with cancer and with aging. Dr. Larry Young is William P. Timmie Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University. He is chief of the Division of Behavioral Neurosci­ ence and Psychiatric Disorders at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory. He will focus on understanding how genetic and cellular neurobiological mechanisms regu­ late complex social behavior. He uses a very interesting rodent species in this work. His title says depression, schizophrenia, and autism, but his major focus will be autism. Dr. Erich Jarvis is at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center. He studies the neurobiology of vocal communication with an emphasis on molecular pathways involved in per­ ception and the production of learned vocalizations. In his work he uses an integrative approach that combines behav­ ioral, anatomical, and molecular biological techniques, and he’ll share some insights into brain development from ani­ mal vocalization studies.