At the 2007 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a component of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Nora D. Volkow will take part in a symposium featuring world-renowned neuroscientists presenting the recent advances in brain-imaging that have revolutionized our understanding of addiction as a chronic disease. The addiction symposium is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, and will be preceded by an AAAS news briefing highlighting key speakers and findings.
Dr. Volkow will discuss the possible commonalities between drug addiction and obesity. She will compare studies on the brain dopamine responses in addicted subjects to those that had previously been found in food-deprived subjects. Her remarks will highlight the similarities in the responses of the dopamine system of an addicted person and that of a healthy control under conditions of food deprivation.
NEWS BRIEFING: The news briefing will feature brief presentations followed by a Q&A session.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
1:00 - 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time
AAAS Briefing Room, Nikko Ballroom III
Third floor Hotel Nikko, San Francisco, CA
SYMPOSIUM: Friday, February 16, 2007
8:30 - 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time
Hilton San Francisco, Ballroom Level, Continental Ballroom 6
Bio sketches of the panelists and speaker abstracts are available at: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/addictionSymposium.asp