PLASTICITY OF GABA-MEDIATED INHIBITION
Friday, January 25, 2008
Neuroscience Research Building, UCLA

8:30 am      Continental Breakfast

9:00 am      Welcome and Introduction: GABA Research at UCLA
Richard W. Olsen, Ph.D., Program Project Director; Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, University of California, Los Angeles

9:15 am      GABAA Receptor Plasticity During Pregnancy and Postpartum: Clues for Postpartum Depression
Istvan Mody, Ph.D., PI, Program Project; Tony Coelho Professor of Neurology, and Professor of Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles

10:00 am     Coffee Break

10:30 am     GABAA Receptor Subunit Mutations and Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsies: In Vitro Analysis of Subunit Expression and Assembly and of Receptor Trafficking and Function
Robert Macdonald, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Neurology, Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and Pharmacology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee

11:15 am     GABAA Receptor Dysfunction in a Mouse Model of a Human Epilepsy g2 Subunit Mutation
Steven Petrou, Ph.D., Florey Neurosciences Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia

12:00 pm    Lunch Break

1:30 pm      Roles for Extrasynaptic GABA Receptors in Circuit Activity
Tom Otis, Ph.D., PI, Program Project; Professor of Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles

2:15 pm      GABAA Receptor Subtype-Specificity of Drug Action: A Paradigm Leading to Novel Therapeutic Strategies
Uwe Rudolph, M.D., Laboratory of Genetic Neuropharmacology, McLean Hospital; Department of Psychiatry, Harvard University Medical School, Belmont, Massachusetts

3:00 pm      Coffee Break                                                       

3:30 pm      Searching for Neurosteroid Binding Sites on the GABAA Receptor.
                  Trevor Smart, Ph.D., Schild Professor of Pharmacology and Head, Dept of Pharmacology, University College London, United Kingdom

4:15 pm      Hippocampal Inhibition and Anesthetic-Induced Amnesia
Robert Pearce, M.D., Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison

5:00 pm      Closing Discussion