Johns Hopkins researchers started delving into the functions and abilities of the brain a century ago, in 1906, and today the laboratories of more than 250 full-time faculty members focus on questions about the brain. The symposium is co-sponsored by the departments of Neuroscience, Neurology, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery.

But the "Discovery and Hope" symposium is not just about Johns Hopkins. Featured speakers at the symposium are from other institutions. Two Nobel laureates, Richard Axel and Eric Kandel, and six other leading neuroscientists -- Cornelia Bargmann, Roger Nicoll, Carla Shatz, William T. Newsome III, Fred Gage and Huda Zoghbi -- are scheduled to present their work. Johns Hopkins neuroscientists Rick Huganir and Solomon Snyder will provide opening and closing remarks, respectively.

The speakers' presentations will include the latest on our understanding of smell, vision, learning and memory, decision-making, and balance-eroding diseases called spinocerebellar ataxias. A separate symposium on Nov. 10 will include scientific presentations by nine Hopkins neurology faculty and three outside neurologists on topics ranging from the genetics of multiple sclerosis to new treatment options being developed for multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, muscular dystrophies and motor neuron diseases.

"There were enclaves of scientists and physicians studying the brain in various departments at Hopkins well before the neuroscience department was formed in 1980," recalls Snyder, the first and only director the Department of Neuroscience has ever had. "Hopkins has an exceptionally robust environment in which to stu
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Contact: Joanna Downer
jdowner1@jhmi.edu
410-614-5105
Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
8-Nov-2005