November 8, 2013, 8:30am – 5:30 pm
Room 24, San Diego Convention Center

8:30 am -  Welcome / Opening Remarks
                 Kenneth Warren, Ph.D. Acting Director, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
                 Antonio Noronha, Ph.D., Director, Division of Neuroscience and Behavior, NIAAA

8:40 am -  Overview on brain pathways to recovery from alcohol dependence
                 Changhai Cui, Ph.D., Program Director, Division of Neuroscience and Behavior, NIAAA

Session I: Negative Affect Associated with Alcohol Abstinence
Chair:      Antonio Noronha, Ph.D., Director, Division of Neuroscience and Behavior, NIAAA

8:50 am -  Compulsive alcohol seeking driven by negative emotional states associated with alcohol abstinence
                   George Koob, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders, the Scripps Research  Institute

9:20 am -  Disrupted stress-related mPFC/ACC activity jeopardizes alcohol recovery 
                   Rajita Sinha, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Neurobiology and Child Study, Director of Interdisciplinary Stress Center, Chief, Psychology Section in Psychiatry, Deputy Director, Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, Yale University School of Medicine

9:50 am -  Impaired sleep homeostasis is the cause of sleep disruptions associated with alcoholism
                   Mahesh Thakkar, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Missouri Health System and Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital

10:20 am -  Break

Session II:  Cognitive Function Deficit and Recovery
Chair:     John Matochik, Ph.D., Program Director, Division of Neuroscience and Behavior, NIAAA
 

10:35 am -  Persistent increases in TLR signaling and reversal learning deficits in abstinence 
                 Fulton Crews, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Director, Bowles Center for  Alcohol Studies, University of North Carolina

11:05 am -  Plasticity of the mPFC and protracted deficits in executive function
                 Judson Chandler, Ph.D., Professor, Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs, Medical University of  South Carolina

11:35 am -  Dynamic course of alcoholism: brain imaging of humans and animal models
                 Adolf Pfefferbaum, M.D., Director, Neuroscience Program, Center for Health Sciences, SRI  International

12:05 am -  Lunch Break
 
Session III: Neuroadaptation During Abstinence
Chair:     Changhai Cui, Program Director, Division of Neuroscience and Behavior, NIAAA
 
1:15 pm - Genetic influences and gene expression changes associated with alcohol dependence, withdrawal, and relapse drinking
              Howard Becker, Ph.D., Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Director,  Charleston Alcohol Research Center, Medical University of South Carolina
 
1:45 pm - Neuroadaptation of the striatum associated with relapse drinking during early and protracted abstinence
                David Lovinger, Ph.D., Senior Investigator and the Chief of the Laboratory for Integrative Neuroscience, NIAAA

2:15 pm - Promoting abstinence by decreasing the impact of drug-associated memories through reconsolidation blockade
                Barry Everitt, Sc D, FRS, F Med Sci, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge

2:45 pm - Break

Session IV: Neuromechanisms of Treatment
Chair:     Mark Egli, Program Director, Division of Neuroscience and Behavior, NIAAA

3:00 pm - Relationship between cortical gliogenesis and alcohol use disorders: new avenues for novel therapies
               Chitra Mandyam, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders, the Scripps Research Institute

3:30 pm - Resting-state synchrony: a potential target for a neurofeedback treatment of alcoholism
                George Fein, Ph.D., Senior Scientists, President, Neurobehavioral Research Inc.

4:00 pm - Using neuroimaging approaches to investigate treatment mechanisms
               Marc N Potenza PhD, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Child Study and Neurobiology, Yale University

4:30 pm   Panel Discussion
               Moderator: Dr. Edith Sullivan

               Drs. Kathy Grant, Adron Harris, Dieter Meyerhoff, Marisa Roberto, and Edith Sullivan

5:25 pm   Closing Remarks