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InterviewJean-Pol TassinPage 2

Upcoming ECNP CongressAmsterdam 2010Page 4

HighlightsECNP School 2009Page 5

ECNP Research Grant Report winnersPage 6

The Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) is one of the key functional elements of ECNP. Its main role is to produce the scien-tific symposia that give us such high-quality annual meetings. But in addition it makes recommendations for the ECNP symposia at other international and national meetings. Because of the scale of the ECNP Congress and the interdisciplinary nature of ECNP, these tasks are very complex and demanding. The chair of the SPC is therefore a challeng-ing position and one that is critical for the optimal functioning of ECNP.In recent years, to provide stability and

expertise in the position, the SPC chair has been appointed to serve for three years. We have now come to the end of the term served by Sven Ove Ögren and I want to thank him on behalf of all the members of the Executive Committee and the members of ECNP for his outstanding efforts in this role. His will be a hard act to follow. But I am delighted that another leading preclinical scientist, Michel Hamon, has agreed to take up the role. We wish him a great deal of success in this position and look forward to the 23rd ECNP Congress in Amsterdam, which will be the first under his chairmanship.

Eduard Vieta, Spainchair ECNP Workshop Committee

Here we go again! Next March, from 4 to 7, the ECNP Workshop on Neuro -psycho pharmacology for Young Scientists in Europe will celebrate another edition of this landmark educational but research-oriented meeting, and about a hundred young inves-tigators (PhD students, post-docs and resi-dents) will have again an opportunity to share new research data and experiences with their peers and with top scientists in an informal, highly interactive, and intensive way. As in previous years, the ECNP will sponsor travel and accommodation expenses for young sci-entists in the field of neuropsychopharmacol-ogy and related areas.

The programme will address hot topics in the fields of molecular, behavioural, and clinical neuropsychopharmacology, and there will be in this Workshop, as usual, a session on a specific topic, namely ‘bipolar disorders’. Confirmed senior speakers include Francine Benes, USA, Tommy Pattij, The Netherlands, Hans-Peter Landolt, Switzerland, Stephen Suomi, USA, Nick Ramsey, The Netherlands, Fabrizio Benedetti, Italy, Husseini Manji, USA, and Allan Young, Canada. Members

of the ECNP Workshop Committee will be acting as chairs and discussants but the core of the meeting programme will be the contri-butions of the young investigators, with their posters and selected oral presentations. We are all very excited with this programme and very much looking forward to the 2010 ECNP Workshop in Nice, France!

Impressions from the 22nd ECNP Congress in IstanbulSven Ove Ögren, Swedenchair Scientific Programme Committee

It is a great honour to give my impres-sion as chair of the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) of the 22nd ECNP Congress in Istanbul. The week before the start of the congress was very dramatic and all of us in the organisation had reminis-cences of 2001 and ‘September 11’ when the ECNP Congress in Istanbul had to be cancelled one week before its opening. From our TV sets came very alarming news and at some points we had the impression that the whole of Turkey was flooded with water and on the brink of a natural disaster. Several speakers sent worrying e-mails about what to do and a few cancelled their presentations. Luckily, the ECNP Office onsite gave a more balanced view and the president of ECNP gave the go-ahead for the ECNP Congress.

In view of this dark background, it is my pleasure to report that the 22nd ECNP Congress was again acknowledged as a spec-tacular meeting. As in the last two years, the ECNP Congress attracted a large number of delegates (close to 8,000), who filled the lecture rooms from morning to late afternoon throughout the congress. I was delighted to notice that the three plenary lectures attracted a large audience and that the attendance in the various symposia was overall very high. I was also impressed by the high level of personal involvement shown by the delegates, which indicates the important role the annual ECNP Congresses play in expanding the intellectual and professional aspects of the participants’ research training in both pre-clinical and clinical science. The congresses are also perceived as an important forum for all with a stake in neuropsy-chopharmacology (not only within Europe), attracting basic to clinical researchers, physi-cians, industry representatives, policy-makers and opinion-leaders.

The major aim of the SPC is to create a high-quality scientific programme with a balanced mix of basic/clinical science and applied clinical developments. Another important aim is to report on new and exciting discov-eries in the field of neuropsychopharmacol-ogy. I think that the 22nd ECNP Congress managed to fulfil both these aims. This achievement depends to a large extent on the inputs of many pre-clinical and clinical sci-entists. I hope that this creative interaction between ECNP and individual scientists can be further developed to maintain the ECNP Congresses as outstanding meetings. As an example, there are now well-developed chan-nels of communication by which ECNP members and the ECNP Scientific Advisory Panels (SAP) can contribute to the final programme by organising the brainstorming sessions and proposing the ECNP Targeted Expert Meeting symposia.

The quality of the ECNP Congress is due to the number (about 80-90 each year) of sym-posium proposals received from individual researchers. The possibility of proposing full symposia, as well as the speakers, has been a great success, but sometimes results in the delicate problem of selecting and integrating 3-4 rather similar topics into one proposal. I am convinced that this procedure increases the quality of the final symposium and also results in a more relevant programme.

Istanbul has followed this tradition within ECNP by blending high-level science with novel clinical applications and therapeutic

innovations. This is also reflected in the scientific programme by the number of initiatives taken by ECNP during the past few years to inspire and motivate young scientists in high-quality research, in par-ticular the Young Scientist Award sympo-sia. Selected presentations from the annual ECNP Workshop for Young Scientists in Nice give a testimony of the high quality of young scientists within Europe.

With the broad background of the audi-ence, it is also critical to have a varied and multidisciplinary scientific programme. It is equally important that the audience is given the opportunity to have expert summaries on recent progress in basic and clinical sci-ence and how this progress can be translated into novel treatments or clinical applica-tions. In the educational symposia the audi-ence can directly interact with these experts, which contributes to stimulating dialogues between researchers and clinicians in differ-ent fields of research. My impression is that the emphasis on translational issues is highly appreciated by most participants and it facil-itates the communication between different disciplines in related fields of research.

Since 2006, ECNP has organised annual Targeted Expert Meetings (TEM) to pro-mote the exchange of ideas between mem-bers of the ECNP, Scientific Advisory Panels, experts, and European scientists between 5-15 years post-doc. Four meetings are held just before the ECNP Congress and partici-pation is by invitation only. The four TEM in Istanbul were very highly appreciated by the participants and we are grateful for the input of all the participants and the addi-tional work done by the coordinators.

Knowledge of brain mechanisms of rel-evance for health and disease is expanding quickly and it is difficult to keep up with the rapid flow of information. The Breaking News symposia are aimed at presenting the most recent news in scientific achievements, which may result in possible clinical applica-tions. The lectures were all at a high scien-tific level, but there is a clear need for more translational approaches.

Summing up, the 22nd ECNP Congress in Istanbul was by any criteria a formida-ble success. I am convinced that everyone attending the congress felt that he or she had learned many interesting new things which captivated his or her scientific imagination. I think that the 22nd ECNP Congress gave all of us the lasting impression that the future for neuropsychopharmacology in Europe is bright.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all contributors and, in particular, the local advisors, who made the 22nd ECNP Congress such a memorable meeting, and the ECNP Office.

Thank you, Sven Ove Ögren! Welcome, Michel Hamon!

Highlights of the 2010 ECNP Workshop

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

David Nutt, United Kingdom president ECNP

2010 ECNP Workshop

4 -7 March 2010Nice, FranceNice, France

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As chemist by training, you started your research activity with a PhD on a bacte-rial alcohol dehydrogenase involved in hydrocarbon metabolism. How and why then did you move to neuropsychopharmacology?After secondary school, when I had to decide on my future, a friend of mine became mentally ill. I did not understand what was wrong with him and I wanted very much to know. I considered studying psychoanalysis, but I felt that was not scientific enough at that time. I considered the activity in the brain to be related to chemistry and there-fore I chose to study biochemistry.

For my military service I looked for replace-ment work and found an opportunity at Jacques Glowinski’s laboratory. This was my introduction to Inserm. After my mili-tary service I stayed as a post-doc in the team, working on cortical and subcortical dopamine, and although I never left, the topic has changed.

Last year, Jacques Glowinski won the ECNP Life Achievement Award and you are honoured this year with the ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award. As you were in Glowinski’s team for 30 years, it is indeed a nice recognition of this lab. Can you tell me more about the position of this lab with respect to neu-ropsychopharmacology in France?Most neuropharmacologists in France have worked either in the Paris School, i.e. ‘Glowinski’s’ laboratory, or in the Bordeaux School, i.e. ‘Le Moal and Cardo’s’ laboratory. There are also schools in Montpellier and Strasbourg, but they are younger and more molecular-directed.

At Glowinski’s laboratory there were seven teams, each devoted to another aspect of the physiopathology of mental diseases. The teams worked in close proximity and that turned out to be very profitable: one could always go to the ‘neighbours’ for advice on topics you were not sure about.

Neuropharmacology grew in the period of 1950-1970 and had its peak in the 1980s. After 1990, the focus of neuropharmacology moved away to neuroimaging, neuroscience and genetics.As Jacques Glowinski has retired (see inter-view in ECNP Matters 15), his laboratory is being dismantled. Already six teams have left and I will leave from 1 January 2010 to another centre: at the Pierre & Marie Curie University, also in Paris.

Within neuropsychopharmacology, re -search on addiction seems especially active in France, notably thanks to MILDT, the French Agency against Addictive Drugs, of whose Scientific Committee you are president. Can you draw a brief overview of this mat-ter and integrate your own contributions in this context?MILDT is an interdepartmental mission for the fight against drugs and drug addiction. MILDT was established in the ‘90s as a mis-sion from the prime minister. It consists of a 10-year collaboration between 17 ministries in the fight against addiction. Money can be given to the police, the customs or the justice departments as well as for research.

I was asked to research how cocaine addic-tion ‘works’. It is in that research that I started to shift from dopamine towards noradrenalin and serotonin and the uncou-

pling phenomenon in the cortex (see jury report for more details). I found that all addic-tive drugs induce this uncoupling of cortical serotonin and noradrenalin.

Drug addiction is a major public health problem, especially because it concerns adolescents, i.e. ‘the future’ of our coun-tries. Addiction, which is, as I propose, the occur-rence of cortical serotonin and noradrenalin uncoupling after drug intake, is partly a result of genetics and for a large part a result of environmental factors. Actually, the cou-pling of serotonin and noradrenalin does not exist at birth but develops over the years up to the age of 15. Whether the coupling ends up being strong or weak depends on a history of (lots of ) stress. The more stress an infant suffers the weaker the coupling will be and the more susceptible to addiction(s) he or she may become. Moreover, it is not the pleasure felt after taking drugs that results in becoming addicted, but it is the uncoupling that induces withdrawal effects after the drug-taking has stopped.

The risk of becoming addicted, that is, the degree to which drugs induce uncoupling, differs strongly between different drugs and is smaller than usually thought: 85% of cocaine users do not become addicted, and this percentage goes up to 99% for those who have taken or received morphine. In contrast, one estimates that 22% of the gen-eral population is addicted to tobacco, one of the most addictive drugs of abuse! Once uncoupled, the serotonin and noradrenalin stays uncoupled. After ceas-ing to smoke, 84% of people relapse after

a few weeks despite nicotine replacement therapy. My team has proposed that the naturally occurring MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) in tobacco play a role in the addiction process. Actually, tobacco and tobacco smoke contain a powerful MAOI called acetaldehyde. There is some indica-tion that this compound is responsible, with nicotine, for the addictive potency of tobacco. Sugar, honey or chocolate, which are additives often added to tobacco, pro-duce acetaldehyde when they are burned and it is very likely that they also participate in the addiction process. MAOIs by themselves do not induce uncoupling, nor does nico-tine. However, when MAOIs and nicotine are given together, as it is the case with tobacco, uncoupling occurs.

What can really be expected from pre-clinical research today for a better clinical management of this disease?The final outcome of the research is a pat-ent on a compound that should alleviate the withdrawal effect of smoking, while one is still taking the nicotine through skin patches or chewing gum. In animals this compound seems to alleviate withdrawal effects, whereas no toxicity is found. Research is still being performed as to whether the uncoupling can be reversed. We have obtained very prelimi-nary data indicating that some pharmaco-logical treatments may reverse uncoupling.

ECNP has a strong focus on involving young scientists in neuropsychopharma-cology. How is the situation in your lab in this respect?The future of neuropsychopharmacology is

held by the pharmaceutical industry. They still claim that neuropsychopharmacology will change things, while in the past 20 years not much progress has been observed. In France, government money does not go to neuropsychopharmacology, it is not fashionable. The attention goes, as I said earlier, to neuroimaging, neurodegeneration and genetics. The ECNP Congresses attract a large research audience with a wide variety of expertise and I hope that this will give a boost to neuropsychopharmacology.

Finally, I am aware of your great inter-est in psychoanalysis, notably through numerous talks and conferences on this topic throughout your scientific career. Can you summarise just in a few words (I know it’s an especially hard challenge) your views today, as a neuropsychophar-macologist in the 21st century, of this discipline?Subconsciously, my interest in psychoanaly-sis is always there. To my knowledge, there is nothing in neuroscience that would make psychoanalysis false. My proposition is that two modes of brain functioning exist: one is quick, analogical and dependent upon neu-ronal ionic channel properties. The other is slower, cognitive and recruits the prefrontal cortex, which is a structure able to maintain a stimulus for longer periods than the usual 80-ms windows of analogical processing. The prefrontal cortex is under the con-trol of neuromodulators and each mode, analogical and cognitive, is characterised by differences in the relative activities of NA, DA and 5-HT neurons, which are in turn dependent upon environmental fac-tors which act on motivation and mood. At birth and during REM sleep, the mode of brain functioning is essentially analogue. In contrast, both analogical and cognitive modes are postulated to co-exist and oscil-late in the awake state. Michel Jouvet has proposed that dreams occur during the REM sleep. However, in REM sleep, because NA and 5-HT neurons are silent, the mode of brain functioning is analogical and the consciousness, which is necessary to express dreams cannot be attained. We propose that dreams appear during the short (500 ms to few seconds) awakenings naturally occurring along the night. Dreams would be due to sudden reactivation of NA and 5-HT neu-rons and to the shift from the pure analogical mode of REM sleep to the cognitive mode. Along that line, dreams would be the cogni-tive expression of our analogical processing. Psychoanalysts, when they interpret dreams, allow the patients to figure out the informa-tion they have stored using their analogical processing. Free associations, as proposed by Freud, would be another way to attain one’s analogical memories.

Would you like to add anything to the above?Yes, I would like to say that I am extremely grateful to the ECNP Neuropsychopharma-cology Award jury. This award is a recogni-tion of the work performed by my laboratory against all odds. I would like to thank ECNP for this courageous gesture.

Interview with the winner of the 2009 ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award in Basic Science Research: Jean-Pol Tassin, France

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Jean-Pol Tassin was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Currently, he is Director of Research at the Inserm ‘Molecular Genetics, Neurophysiology and Behaviour’

laboratory, Collège de France, Paris, France.Jean-Pol Tassin is married and has four children.

From left to right: Tomas Hökfelt, Jean-Pol Tassin and David Nutt.

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www.ecnp.eu

Report of the ECNP Award Jury 2009Tomas Hökfelt, Sweden, chair

In the mid 1990s Jean-Pol Tassin made the surprising observation that D-amphetamine-induced locomotor activity, a much-studied behaviour at that time tightly linked to the dopamine system, could be inhibited by a blockade of cortical alpha1B-adrenoceptors, as well as by genetic deletion of this receptor. A similar situation could be shown for 5-HT2A receptors. In fact, he found that these two receptors exerted a modulatory, inhibitory influence on each other, an effect that seems necessary for normal cortical function. However, this mutual inhibition could not be seen in wild-type mice after repeated administration of psychostimulants. Jean-Pol Tassin termed this mechanism ‘uncoupling’, which induces a long-term, perhaps irreversible, sensitisation of these two neuron systems. Moreover, this effect is not seen after selective increases of extracellular dopamine levels, indicating an important dichotomy: whereas dopamine neu-rons are necessary for drug-induced reward, the addictive effects may not be related to dopaminergic mechanisms.

These results have led Jean-Pol Tassin to formulate a novel and original model of addiction: when repeatedly exposed to psychostimulants, two important monoamine systems, the noradrenaline and the serotonin neurons, are chroni-cally uncoupled. During withdrawal these uncoupled neurons are exposed to desynchronised activation and the brain reacts with distress and discomfort that can be relieved by further intake of drug. This is called relapse, which induces an artificial recoupling of the neurons. The model may provide some explanation why human addicts relapse, even long time after withdrawal, and may also open up for new therapeutic strategies.

Following up on this trail the Tassin team has recently shown that nicotine, in contrast to other psychostimulants, cannot uncouple noradrenaline and serot-onin neurons. However, this can occur when nicotine is administered together with an MAO inhibitor. Since MAO inhibitors are present in tobacco, this may explain the potent addictive effect of smoking and why nicotine administered as chewing gums or patches are not good tobacco substitutes.

Taking these findings together, Jean-Pol Tassin has proposed a novel and origi-nal model of addiction, whereby uncoupling of the noradrenergic and seroton-ergic system is the basic neurochemical consequence of repeated drug abuse. This represents a substantial contribution to our understanding of one of the most vicious diseases afflicting mankind and our society - drug addiction.

The ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award has been established to recognise distinguished research in neuropsychopharmacology and closely related disci-plines. This annual award, given alternately to basic and clinical research, has so far been received by thirty-one scientists.

This year nominations in basic science research have been assessed, and the awardee is Dr Jean-Pol Tassin, Team Leader, Laboratory Molecular Genetics, Neurophysiology and Behaviour, CNRS, Collège de France, Paris. The Award Jury 2009 has recognised his pioneering and innovative research concerning our understanding of mechanisms underlying drug addiction, one of the most burning issues in society today, with enormous socio-economic consequences.

Jean-Pol Tassin’s early work and Ph.D. thesis in 1973 concerned an alcohol dehydrogenase involved in the metabolism of hydrocarbons by bacteria. A chem-ist by training but with a strong interest in psychology and psychoanalysis, he then joined, as a post-doctoral fellow, the laboratory of Jacques Glowinski at the Collège de France to work in the team of Anne-Marie Thierry. This was an excit-ing time in the laboratory, since a novel dopamine system had been discovered projecting to certain (limbic) cortical areas, a system that had escaped detection by the histochemists. Jean-Pol Tassin became immediately involved in the neu-rochemical and functional characterisation of this system, obtaining important results that were published, among others, in three Nature papers. Interesting aspects were the selective activation of this system by stress and how cortical and subcortical dopaminergic innervations determine functional hierarchies result-ing in specific behaviours such as locomotor activity or behavioural sensitisation. Moreover, a differential regulation of dopamine D1 receptors in the prefrontal cortex versus striatum/nucleus accumbens by, respectively, noradrenergic and glutamatergic afferents could be established. He also demonstrated the presence of a peptide, neurotensin, in these mesocortical dopamine neurons and that the neurotensin binding sites and dopamine receptors in the rat prefrontal cortex showed a distinct overlap. Taken together, Jean-Pol Tassin was instrumental in defining important roles for the dopaminergic cortical system with implications for involvement of this transmitter in higher brain functions and pathology, including schizophrenia.

The 50th SCNP Annual Meeting that took place on 27-29 April 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark, was a good meeting. The ECNP Symposium was well received. Unfortunately, Francesco Fornai, Italy, had to cancel his par-ticipation at the last moment. However, the other three speakers took advantage of the extra time and did a very good job.

On behalf of ECNP, I have congratulated SCNP on their 50th anniversary of their congress.

The programme of the ECNP Symposium consisted of:

New treatments - possible breakthroughs in recent clinical research

Moderators: Elias Eriksson, Gothenburg Sven Ove Ögren, Stockholm

Is there a rationale for atypical psychotics in bipolar depression?Willem A. Nolen, Groningen, The Netherlands

The possible role of group II metabotropic glutamate receptors for the treatment of schizophreniaAbraham Weizman, Petah Tikva, Israel

Protein kinase C inhibitor tamoxifen new concept in the treatment of maniaAysegül Yildiz, Izmir, Turkey

P.7.b.008 Diva Eensoo, EstoniaP.2.a.005 Mehmet Cagdas Eker, TurkeyP.1.c.048 Joost H. Folgering,

The NetherlandsP.3.c.064 Koen Grootens, The NetherlandsP.4.c.007 Andreas Hahn, AustriaP.3.a.024 Evelina Haralanova, GermanyP.3.a.032 Oliver Howes, United KingdomP.7.e.002 Sefi Kronenberg, IsraelP.5.a.007 Alexandra Kutzelnigg, AustriaP.6.d.009 Antonio Luchicchi, ItalyP.3.a.011 Valeria Mondelli, United

KingdomP.1.i.040 Astrid Morer, SpainP.2.a.045 Emma Pegg, United Kingdom

P.3.c.063 Stefano Porcelli, ItalyP.2.c.034 Maria J. Portella, SpainP.1.c.015 Alfredo Ramos-Miguel, SpainP.6.b.011 Arnt Schellekens,

The NetherlandsP.2.d.006 Arianne van Reedt Dortland,

The NetherlandsP.1.e.001 Elske Vrieze, BelgiumP.1.b.014 Joanna Wabno, PolandP.6.a.008 Ben Watson, United KingdomP.6.c.007 Tim Williams, United KingdomP.6.d.008 Victoria Wing, United KingdomP.1.c.041 Patricia Zunszain, United

Kingdom

ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology AwardJean-Pol Tassin, France

ECNP Fellowship AwardClaudio D'Addario, ItalyBernardo Dell'Osso, ItalySarah Durston, The NetherlandsCelia Morgan, United Kingdom Colm O'Tuathaigh, IrelandIoannis Sotiropoulos, Greece

ECNP Poster AwardP.4.d.001 Roberto Andreatini, BrazilP.2.a.016 Danilo Arnone, United KingdomP.1.e.004 Onno de Klerk, The NetherlandsP.2.b.002 Gabriele Flugge, GermanyP.5.a.008 Stephen Graham, USAP.3.a.032 Oliver Howes, United KingdomP.3.d.018 Laia Lladó Pelfort, Spain

P.6.d.009 Antonio Luchicchi, ItalyP.1.c.022 Hidehiro Oshibuchi, JapanP.7.b.004 Evelien Platje, The Netherlands

ECNP Travel AwardP.7.a.007 Monica Aas, United KingdomP.6.b.007 Sally Adams, United KingdomP.6.d.003 María Álvaro Bartolomé, SpainP.2.a.016 Danilo Arnone, United KingdomP.1.g.011 A. Seda Artis, TurkeyP.6.d.010 Gilda Baccini, ItalyP.4.a.008 Katja Beesdo, GermanyP.1.a.009 Anita Benko, HungaryP.2.b.011 Aurelie Blugeot, FranceP.1.i.003 Gerard Clarke, IrelandP.4.a.018 Simon J. C. Davies, United

KingdomP.2.c.012 Darragh Downey, United

Kingdom

ECNP Symposium at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Scandinavian College of Neuro-PsychopharmacologySven Ove Ögren, Swedenchair Scientific Programme Committee 20th-22nd ECNP Congress

Award winners 2009

Fellowship Award winners accompanied by Tomas Hökfelt and David Nutt.

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24th ECNP Congress: call for symposium proposals The Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) of the 24th ECNP Congress invites you to submit proposals for a full symposium.

You will find details of the requirements for a symposium proposal, the submission pages and the selection criteria set by the SPC on the ECNP website.

Please note that the deadline is 31 March 2010.

Report from the 10th ECNP Regional Meeting Jaanus Harro, Estoniachair Local Advisory Committee

The 10th ECNP Regional Meeting was held in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The meet-ing attracted more participants than the venue, the Viru Hotel Conference Centre, could possibly accommodate, so the regis-tration had to be closed early. Altogether 564 participants attended the meeting. While the number of Estonian psychiatrists and pharmacologists in the audience was the highest, it amounted to just 27% of the attendees. Large groups of participants came from Poland, Italy, Greece, Hungary, and Latvia, but altogether 22 countries were represented. While the strategically situated and both medieval and modern Tallinn has attracted many international events in recent years, the ECNP Regional Meeting was an event noticed even outside the neuropsychopharmacology community. Words of welcome were delivered by Mrs Evelyn Ilves, the First Lady of Estonia, and Professor Richard Villems, the president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. The Arsis Youth Handbell Ensemble, led by Aivar Mäe, made the point particularly clearly that even if Estonians are best known for being mostly silent people who hold dispro-portionally large singing festivals, they can also express even in music a variety of deep emotions with minimal means.

The programme consisted of two keynote lectures, two meet-the-expert sessions, four symposia (depression, anxiety, psychogenet-ics, and neuroplasticity), and poster sessions. The industry’s viewpoint was presented in satellite symposia and exhibitions. The scien-tific programme, as one would expect from ECNP, was of the highest standard, owing to the presence of Tomas Hökfelt, Sweden,

Michel Hamon, France, Klaus-Peter Lesch, Germany, and several other top scientists. Both the president of ECNP, David Nutt, United Kingdom, and the president-elect, Joseph Zohar, Israel, contributed to the meeting, as did the president of the World Federation of the Societies of Biological Psychiatry, Siegfried Kasper, Austria. The speakers list was fairly international and among the lecturers 14 nations were repre-sented. The poster sessions were lively and offered more junior scientists a chance to present their findings, ranging from funda-mental neurochemistry to psychiatric genet-ics. The ECNP Regional Poster Awards were given to two young researchers from the University of Tartu, Külli Jaako and Evelyn Kiive. Both of them attended the 22nd ECNP Congress in Istanbul.

The 10th ECNP Regional Meeting was a pleasure to everyone, even to the local organ-isers! This was due, especially, to the well-designed standard operating procedures for managing these events, and the highly skilful team of the ECNP Office. Many thanks to everybody who contributed in whatever form. We are looking forward to meeting all of you again under the flag of ECNP!

Call for papersThe submission of papers for poster presentation at the 23rd ECNP Congress is open until 31 March 2010. You are invited to visit the ECNP website for instructions on the prepara-tion of papers.Please note that you can have your registration fee waived if your paper is accepted for presentation and publication in the congress supplement to the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology. For further information, please visit the ECNP website www.ecnp.eu.

Call for brainstorming sessionsECNP members are invited to propose a small focused brainstorming session on a topic of their choice in the field of neuropsychopharmacology and related sciences at the 23rd ECNP Congress in Amsterdam. If you are interested, please send your proposal according to the guidelines mentioned on the member page of the ECNP website. The deadline for submission of proposals is 31 March 2010.

New: ECNP has a new environment- friendly initiativeAs from 2010 ECNP has decided to announce upcoming ECNP Congresses and Meetings via posters and e-alerts, whereas complete information will be available on the ECNP website. With this initiative ECNP aims to contribute once more to the preservation of natural resources.

Call for applications: ECNP Fellow-ship and Travel Award 2010Young scientists are invited to apply for the ECNP Fellowship and Travel Award 2010. The application period is open until 31 March 2010.

Please visit the ECNP website for further information on these awards and to check if you match the application criteria set for each award.

24th ECNP Congress3-7 September 2011

Paris, France

Call for symposium proposalsDeadline: 31 March 2010

For further information: www.ecnp.eu

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Jaanus Harro

23rd ECNP Congress, 28 August-1 September 2010 Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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The programme was built up of blocks of plenary educational and interactive lectures, workshops on patient cases and presenta-tions of national training experiences in the 17 European countries represented. At the end of the five days, the participants completed a questionnaire to provide feed-back and suggestions for the future.

On the organisation, the participants reported that the ECNP School of Neuropsychopharmacology was well organ-ised and very collaborative relationships existed between them and the organisers. There was a great atmosphere and a high level of exchange of experiences. For the next time some participants suggested a social gathering be organised early in the programme to allow everyone to get to know each other.

On the accommodation, all participants found staying at a real Oxford College, be it not one of the oldest ones, a great experi-ence. The rooms were clean and adequately equipped, and staff was very helpful. The location of the campus near to the lecture area and close by the city centre has also been positively graded.

On the format, the majority of the feedback

was very positive on the balance between formal presentations and the workshops, and in particular the informal, interactive format and the openness of the lecturers.Suggestions for changes in the format were particularly focused on the workshops, whose structure had been left to the speak-ers who led them. It has been proposed to provide future participants with a format in which they could present a case study. Other topics in a workshop format could include problem-solving strategies, specific topics like pharmacogenetics, and study designs. In addition, a mix of the plenary lectures and workshop settings over the day may result in more sustained attention.

From the many suggestions for additional topics, such as child and adolescent neu-ropsychopharmacology, basic and clinical neuroscience, RCTs, addiction and aging-related effects, it is clear that not all can be covered in the given five days. Several participants therefore even suggested consid-ering a follow-up programme!

ENP new editorial team

www.ecnp.eu

The first ECNP School of Neuropsycho-pharmacology was an exciting occasion. I had constructed a nearly five-day course borrowing from previous experiences with the British Association for Psychopharmacology certificate modules, the comments of repre-sentatives of the ECNP Board of National Societies who met in 2008, and my own sense of the participants' needs from reading their very impressive curricula vitae.

We were fortunate that the speakers, the venue and the 45 young people who attended from across Europe clearly clicked. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; the contribution of the speakers was of the highest standard.

The challenge now is to create a sustainable

tradition for the ECNP School which helps to promote the mission of the educational initiative identified by Yves Lecrubier - the improvement of standards of practice in neuropsychopharmacology over the next 20 years.

Highlights of the first edition of the ECNP School of Neuropsycho-pharmacology, 5-10 July 2009, Oxford, United KingdomGuy Goodwin, United Kingdom, organiser

Summary of the feedback from participants

This year the annual conference of the BPA was held in the town of Russe on the Bulgarian bank of the Danube River. For a very long time this town was the only small window through which the Bulgarian people, then a part of the vast Ottoman Empire, could feel European breezes. And quite fittingly, Russe hosted the first ECNP-supported symposium during the national psychiatric association’s major event.

The symposium bore the title ‘The neuro-science compass in the diagnostic roadmap’ and dealt with two issues on the cutting edge of modern scientific psychiatry: epigenetics and endophenotypes in different types of mental disorder. By extension, these topics gave an opportunity for a wider discus-sion on the usefulness of categories versus dimensions in contemporary psychiatric classification systems. The symposium panel comprised two leading international experts, Joseph Zohar and Michael Davidson from Israel, together with the National Specialist in Psychiatry Vihra Milanova and Luchezar G. Hranov from Bulgaria, the latter being the single ECNP member in the BPA.

The audience comprised nearly 70% of all Bulgarian psychiatrists. The attendees had the chance not only to participate in a spirited discussion but to listen in a friendly

relaxed atmosphere to important additional comments from the international experts on the contemporary treatment of anxiety disorders and psychoses. Everyone carried away with them some new knowledge and a sense of deep satisfaction with the very high scientific quality of the symposium.

The ECNP supported symposium turned out to be the highlight of the whole confer-ence and received special attention from the local and national media whose representa-tives densely populated the press confer-ence held by Joseph Zohar and Michael Davidson. The press asked a number of questions on the aims and scope of activities by ECNP. On the next day ECNP received country-wide in-depth media coverage.

ECNP has a long-standing, fruitful collabo-ration with the Bulgarian psychiatric com-munity: an ECNP Educational Team was active in 2004, an ECNP Regional Meeting was held in Sofia in 2007, and this year’s symposium has once more carried through the message that ECNP is a lighthouse of knowledge in the field of modern neuro-science. We are sure that the very useful and satisfactory mutual events will continue to bring modern neuroscience closer to each Bulgarian mental worker.

An ECNP supported symposium at the Annual Conference of the Bulgarian Psychiatric Association (BPA)Luchezar G. Hranov, Bulgaria, local organiser

From left to right: Michael Davidson, Luchezar G. Hranov. Joseph Zohar, Vihra Milanova.

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Report from the winners of the first ECNP Research Grant for Young ScientistsGeorgi Hranov, Bulgaria

The last initiative under Joseph Zohar’s chairmanship was the video recording of lectures held at the ECNP Congresses and other Meetings and its subsequent publica-tion on the ECNP website. ECNP started with the recording of the plenary lectures and the lectures in the educational updates track at the 22nd ECNP Congress. You are invited to visit the Istanbul 2009 webpage where you can find the link to these first webcasts. As you may see, I have been one of

the guinea pigs and it’s not all that bad to see and hear yourself on the screen.

Celso Arango has taken over chairmanship of the Educational Committee, and Joseph Zohar will remain as a member. I am con-fident that under the inspiring leadership of Celso Arango, the Educational Committee will continue to expand ECNP’s educational activities.

We managed to wrap up most of our work and the preliminary results proved to be worthy of being presented at a major inter-national scientific event: the International WPA Congress in Florence. Our results give a strong signal in support of the initial hypoth-eses underlining the unique status of the OCD+tics patient group.

Now the final paper is underway and I am expecting collaborative projects in the near future. My personal professional confidence is now much greater too. All in all, this has been a priceless experience which was worth all the effort and hardship!

Eduard Maron, Estonia

The ECNP Research Grant for Young Scientists gave me a unique opportunity to visit the Psychopharmacology Unit at Bristol University in the United Kingdom, where I joined the research groups of David Nutt for eight months from September 2008.

The grant period was a very important experi-ence for me, considering the outcomes I had from it. I learned various things in different medical disciplines, particularly expanding my knowledge of the methods of epigenetic investigation in animals under the supervi-sion of Hans Reul and David Nutt, and being involved also in clinical studies of anxiety dis-order models under the supervision of David Nutt and Jayne Bailey. These different aspects helped me to understand better the research niceties of the pre-clinical field, which are necessary for scientists like me, who mostly

work in the clinical area.On the other hand, after my arrival in Bristol I was immediately drawn into the scientific atmosphere of the department of David Nutt and this had a dramatic impact on my future plans. In parallel to my research job in Bristol, I had opportunities for self-education and for planning the next steps of my professional development. In November 2008 Imperial College London announced the Junior Research Fellowship Award for the first time and which stimulated me to apply. By the end of my ECNP Research Grant period in Bristol, I received a letter from the Imperial College confirming that the Selection Committee supported my nomina-tion for the fellowship. At the current time, I am starting a pharmaco-MRI project at Imperial College under the guidance of the teams of Paul Matthews and David Nutt.

The importance of the fellowship for me is difficult to overrate considering that psy-chiatric neuroimaging is one of the main research areas related to my scientific career. However, I absolutely realise that a fellow-ship in Imperial College, London, would probably never have been possible for me without the important research experience and educational activity I have had in Bristol, provided through the ECNP Research Grant. I hope this collaborative achievement is suf-ficient and a heavily weighted argument in favour of ECNP’s policy to support young scientists. Based on personal experience, I strongly recommend young European sci-entists to consider applying for an ECNP Research Grant, and I just want to remind them that the objective of this grant is to provide committed young scientists the possi-bility to expand their knowledge and skills by working on international scientific projects. Undoubtedly, this is a unique opportunity for awardees, which gives freedom to focus on their own research and which may signifi-cantly help them to contribute their following development and career.

I would like to sincerely thank ECNP and the Award Jury for their kind support and I wish success to the next ECNP Research Grant nominees. Significantly, one of my current colleagues in Imperial College, Alessandro Colasanti, is a winner of the 2009 ECNP Research Grant for Young Scientists!

David Nutt, United Kingdompresident ECNP

After more than a decade of inspiring chairmanship of the ECNP Educational Committee, Joseph Zohar has stepped down in preparation for his presidency of ECNP.

As a member of the Scientific Programme Committee (SPC), Joseph Zohar has been able to voice the ideas of the Educational

Committee on the contents of the educational update sessions at the ECNP Congresses and also to be an advocate for changes and improvements, such as the use of a voting-pad system. His enthusiasm made it possible to convince speakers in these sessions to con-sider their lectures far further in advance than has typically been the case. In addition, very successful and appreciated educational teams, now named seminars, have been installed during Joseph Zohar’s term.

When I finally arrived in Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom, my initial enthusiasm had been already badly bruised, what with the endless translations, communications, negotiations, permissions and approvals, syn-chronizations and preparations. Moreover, after trying a long string of agencies and individuals, I had finally procured lodgings entirely not to my liking and a flight schedule bringing me in the anywhere of somewhere, and in the middle of the night!

The next day the town proved to be a small cosy and green place leading a quiet and closed-in life.The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in which I was supposed to spend most of the following six months was a medium-size institution (according to our Bulgarian urban standards) spread over three wings and some additional small pavilions. I was met at the Mental Health Unit by my mentor Professor Naomi Fineberg and her gentle kindness somehow managed to melt the grudges and disappoint-ments that had amassed during the previous months. She introduced me to the members of her team and I felt it was not going to be tough after all. Well that was a mistake once again! No matter how easygoing and con-siderate she is as a person, Naomi Fineberg proved to be a strict and demanding supervi-sor entirely at ease in her field of expertise and expecting prompt adaptation and quick to get to full-throttle work: all kinds of team meetings and discussions, intensive training sessions on the implementation and evalua-tion of large batteries of clinical neuropsycho-logical and self-assessment scales, literature searches and unexpected preparation of a whole paper-load for the Ethics Committee’s appraisal. When the final favourable approval

was in our hands and the first results from the pilot study were on the screen, it was already Christmas! Believe it or not, three and a half months had passed without any time to get around and to even begin complaining!

The next three months were filled with cease-less work: evaluating patients and relatives, arranging exploratory visits, participating in widely differing meetings and discussions, including communal work, forensic assess-ments, and sponsor and co-worker- arrange-ments. Finally, I felt as if I had always been part of this creative and tireless network managing one of the most hard-to-treat major mental diseases: obsessive-compulsive disorder.

When the time for departure came I under-stood that there was still more to accomplish and that a further effort was needed, so I came back for a month on my own and was once again met by my mentor with the same kindness and unrelenting drive to perfection.

Thank you, Joseph Zohar!

Joseph Zohar Celso Arango

Georgi Hranov Eduard Maron

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www.ecnp.eu

The first meeting of the then-called Educational Team of ECNP was held on 23-24 November 2000 in Konstancin, Poland, gathering young Polish psychiatrists and researchers interested in neuropsychophar-macology. In the subsequent ECNP Matters, Joseph Zohar, chair of the ECNP Educational Committee, remarked that the educational team in Poland is definitely worth repeating in Eastern or Central Europe. Following this, a number of similar meetings were held in this part of Europe, including the last one in Siofok, Hungary, which was organised jointly with the Association of European Psychiatrists, now the European Psychiatric Association (EPA). In 2009, this initiative was repeated in Poland with the ECNP-EPA Seminar in Neuropsychopharmacology held on 28-30 May in an eighteen century palace in Czerniejewo.

The formula of the Czerniejewo ECNP-EPA Seminar was similar to that run in Siofok in 2008:

• The requirements fromparticipantswereto provide their curriculum vitae and an abstract, connected with a topic of experi-mental or clinical neuropsychopharmacol-ogy, as well as to produce a poster and to give a presentation during the seminar.

• A panel of four foreign experts: Joseph Zohar from Israel, president-elect ECNP and chair of the ECNP Educational Committee, Celso Arango from Spain, future chair of the ECNP Educational Committee, Cyril Hoschl from the Czech Republic, past-president of the EPA and Alessandro Serretti from Italy, member of the ECNP Scientific Programme Committee.

• A panel of local opinion-leaders in psy-chopharmacology consisted of the top board of the Psychopharmacology Section of the Polish Psychiatric Association: Janusz Rybakowski, president, and Małgorzata Rzewuska and Jan Jaracz, vice-presidents.

The main parts of the interactive discussion were three one-and-a-half hour sessions in three parallel groups with different local and foreign expert moderators. During these ses-sions, a half hour was provided for each par-ticipant for his/her presentation and plenary discussion. As it turned out, this is an optimal timeframe for such activity. The participants had a chance to discuss their study design and conclusions as well as to receive criticism and suggestions provided by the experts and co-participants. On the last day, the participants of all the working groups elected a reporter, who presented a summary of their workshop during the plenary session.

The venue of the seminar, Czerniejewo, is located close to Gniezno, which, at the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries used to be the first capital of Poland. Therefore, visiting Gniezno made for an interesting event for both lecturers and participants. In Gniezno cathedral there are the relics of Saint Adalbert, who, although a Czech, became the first Polish saint. Furthermore, in the year 1000, the first integrated European summit was organised in Gniezno, in which the German emperor Otto III participated and that can be regarded a precursor of a united Europe. After more than a millen-nium, Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic have become members of the European Union.

During a three-day interactive workshop in Czerniejewo, young scientists from Poland were brought together with recog-nised experts to present their recent data and to discuss these data in context of a variety of topics related to neuropsychop-harmacology. The workshop was organ-ised on behalf of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), the European Psychiatric Association (EPA), and the Section for Psychopharmacology of Polish Psychiatric Association. The meeting was arranged in a palace from the eighteenth century, which provided comfortable accom-modation as well as excellent facilities.

The international experts, Professors Joseph Zohar, Alessandro Serretti, Celso Arango and Cyril Höschl, along with the Polish team of opinion-leaders in psychopharmacology, Professors Janusz Rybakowski, Małgorzata Rzewuska and Jan Jaracz, worked with 25 young (i.e. up to the age of 35) psychiatrists, pharmacologists and psychologists from Poland.

On the first day, the workshop started with the welcome ceremony and dinner. Janusz Rybakowski, who was the host of the meet-ing, introduced the experts and the seminar agenda.

In the morning of the second day Joseph Zohar opened the lectures session. After his introduction, Alessandro Serretti gave a lec-ture on the role of genetics in the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, in which an up-to-date overview of the issue was presented along with the clinical and regula-tory implications of pharmacogenomics. As Alessandro Serretti is the author of seminal works in pharmacogenomics, it was a pleas-ure to follow his thoughts linking basic stud-ies with clinical applications.Joseph Zohar followed with a lecture on the issue of endophenotypes in anxiety dis-orders, especially in OCD. It was a unique opportunity to listen to a speaker who has made such a contribution to the current diagnostic systems in anxiety disorders.The next lecture by Cyril Höschl was dedi-cated to the selected elements of schizophre-nia and bipolar disorder, with a focus on symptomatology as the discriminating factor in the contemporary diagnostic systems. This presentation elicited many questions on the validity of the psychiatric nosology and its implication for the future diagnostic systems.The lectures’ panel was closed with a presen-tation by Celso Arango on the treatment of early psychoses. This presentation resulted in a vibrant discussion on the ambiguity of the current classification of antipsychotics and the conclusions from the large clinical trials that tend to under-investigate first-generation antipsychotics.Each of the presented speeches was followed by the discussion involving the other experts and the audience, which turned out to be very inspiring and conclusive.

In the afternoon and on the subsequent morning, the workshop part of the seminar took place and the participants were divided into three working groups. For a set of three speeches each of the groups was assigned to a pair of moderators comprised of a local and a foreign expert. As the panel of the moderators changed across the participants’ presentations, it was a good chance to dis-cuss a broad spectrum of topics.

In the final part of the workshop the par-

ticipants of the working groups elected a reporter, who presented a summary of their workshop during the plenary session on Saturday afternoon. The closing lecture of this meeting was given by Joseph Zohar, addressing the topic of the preparation of a scientific presentation. It turned out to be of specific importance as the participants had a chance to assess their performance across the presentation in light of both the experts’ opinions and the other presentations.

The best presentations were given a reward by the Committee. The work of Agnieszka Remlinger-Molenda (Poznan University of Medical Sciences) on cytokine status during manic episodes in bipolar individuals pointed to the increase in the pro-inflammatory sta-tus in course of the affective episodes. The impressive presentation of Agnieszka Prymus (Medical University of Silesia) focused on the results of her study on the immu-nomodulatory effect of antidepressants in animals. Finally, Bartosz Grabski (Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University, Krakow) reported on the results of his epi-demiological survey on lifetime anxiety and substance abuse/dependence comorbidity in bipolar disorder. The presentations selected for the award were of high scientific standard and resulted in lively panel discussions.

The awardees received from Joseph Zohar the ECNP Seminar Award along with the invitation to participate at the 22nd ECNP Congress in Istanbul and a commemora-tive photograph which, when put in their university, will inspire colleagues in their future research.

The presentations given by the participants along with the accompanying posters were of a high scientific merit. However, the most inspiring part of the seminar took place after the speeches when there was a time for discussion, in which every presentation was criticised to improve its scientific value. The participants had a chance to discuss their ideas on the study design and conclusions drawn. The take-away messages were full of novel trial designs with suggestions and solu-tions provided by the experts and co-partic-ipants. It was also a time for the discussion of the synthesis of the researches presented. As the workshop’s core idea was to promote study design, I believe these discussions were the most fruitful and satisfactory part of the Czerniejewo ECNP-EPA Seminar.

The seminar was also a convenient place for the more informal meeting of the world-class experts during the dinner and in the course of travel to Gniezno where the participants visited the cathedral and the Museum of the Origins of the Polish State.

The seminar proved to be profitable due to the limited number of selected participants and the high standard of experts which resulted in an interactive approach in a sociable atmosphere. Moreover, the spec-trum of the presented topics ranging from pre-clinical works to clinical studies gave a chance for the exchange of ideas and facilita-tion of new ones.

Report from participantWieslaw Cubala, Poland

Report from the 2009 ECNP-EPA Seminar in Neuropsychopharma-cology in PolandJanusz K. Rybakowski, head of Psychopharmacology Section, Polish Psychiatric Association, Poland

Participants in front of the Gniezno Cathedral.

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Reports on the ECNP Targeted Expert Meetings (TEM) 2009

TEM Anxiety Disorders and AnxiolyticsAstrid Linthorst, United Kingdom, coordinator

This meeting was chaired by Astrid Linthorst and David Baldwin, United Kingdom, and focused on the roles of the neurotransmitter glutamate and the endocannabinoid system. Their influences on the modulation of fear and anxiety were discussed, together with the potential for novel drug targets in the treatment of anxiety disorders. New hypotheses on the pathophysiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and their implications for drug development were also considered.

In the first main lecture Dai Stephens, United Kingdom, set the scene by providing an overview of the highly complex glutamate system and of potential drug targets within this system. Using both pre-clinical and clinical data, he described the anxiolytic effects of drugs targeting NMDA, kainate, mGlu2/3 and mGlu5 receptors. Next, Sanjay Mathew, USA, discussed new clinical data with riluzole, a drug-inhibiting glutamate release, and this was followed by a presentation from Thomas Steckler, Belgium, on the efficacy, onset of clinical effect and tolerability of glutamatergic anxiolytics.In the subsequent main lecture Beat Lutz, Germany, described the complexity of the endocannabinoid system and its intricate regulation of GABAergic, glutamatergic and serotonergic neurotransmission. Using mutant mouse strategies, he highlighted the importance of endocannabinoids in anxiety and in fear extinction. David Finn, Ireland, continued with an outline of the important role of endocannabinoids in the modulation of fear-conditioned analgesia; and Maria-Paz Viveros, Spain, argued that context, age and gender all influence the ultimate anxiolytic or anxiogenic effects of drugs targeting the endocannabinoid system.

The final main lecture by Kerry Ressler, USA, demonstrated how BDNF and the TrkB receptor are involved in the coordination of a highly specialised brain circuit mediating fear learning. He also presented data on the therapeutical efficacy of NMDA function enhancement by D-cycloserine in exposure-based therapies. Gustav Schelling, Germany, then discussed the intricate interplay between glucocorticoid hormones, endocannabi-noids and noradrenaline, and their role in the pathophysiology of PTSD. Finally, Joseph Zohar, Israel, considered whether PTSD can be prevented, and which time points after the trauma might be the most suitable for intervention.The extensive and rewarding discussions between pre-clinical and clinical scientists clearly demonstrated the considerable opportunities for the improved treatment of patients with anxiety disorders. The participants agreed that more integrated translational research across animal and human models, and then in patients, are paramount in these endeav-ours. Improvements in clinical outcomes may come from targets within the glutamatergic and endocannabinioid systems, and these may be particularly important in the further development of novel therapeutic approaches in PTSD.

TEM Dementia and Neurodegenerative DisordersRichard F. Cowburn, Sweden, coordinator

This TEM meeting was chaired by Richard Cowburn and Hilkka Soininen, Finland.Lars Olson, Sweden, summarised advances in Parkinson (PD) aetiology focusing on genetics. Genes responsible for autosomal dominant and recessive disease have been identified. Genes with causative mutations may also carry less devastating mutations that increase risk. The large number of implicated genes can be grouped as important for mito-chondrial function, proteasomal/lysosomal protein degradation, or detoxification and/or protection against oxidative stress. None are specifically expressed in dopamine neurons, and most have general neuronal or cellular functions. Knowledge of genetic contributions to PD has allowed better animal modelling. Clinical consequences of genetic findings will include early, even presymptomatic diagnosis, presumably individualised treatments, and eventually disease-modifying treatments.

Rohan de Silva, United Kingdom, described tauopathies as a group of neurodegenera-tive disorders characterised by fibrillar deposits of abnormally hyperphosphorylated and aggregated tau. Tau gene (MAPT) mutations causing frontotemporal dementia and com-mon polymorphic variation in MAPT that influence risk of PSP and corticobasal degen-eration implicate defective tau protein and its homeostasis as the key to pathogenesis. A consistent mechanism emerging is increased production of more fibrillogenic tau variants. Therapeutic approaches for tauopathies aim to prevent or clear pathological inclusions and/or reduce levels of pathogenic tau. The different approaches being tested were sum-marised and placed in the context of current debates and uncertainties around the key event(s) in tau-related pathogenic processes.

Kaj Blennow, Sweden, summarised biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and demen-tias. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of beta-amyloid 1-42 and total and phospho-rylated tau have high diagnostic value for AD and a high predictive value for identifying prodromal AD in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) cases. To improve the predictive value even further, CSF biomarker data should be combined with MRI for hippocampal atrophy and amyloid-PET. CSF biomarkers are valuable in drug development as diagnos-tic markers for enrichment, for patient stratification, safety, and to follow drug effects. Biomarker data from small, short-term clinical trials showing that drugs have predicted effects in AD patients will be important for go/no-go decisions before Phase III trials.

TEM Affective Disorders and AntidepressantsArne Mørk, Denmark, coordinator

The meeting, chaired by Arne Mørk and Eduard Vieta, Spain, focused on the importance of bridging the gap between drug discovery in animals and drug development in human patients when developing better treatments for affective disorders.The first main lecturer, Mark Millan, France, discussed current issues in the development of new antidepressants. Due to the heterogeneous nature of depression and the high co-morbidity with other CNS disorders, it is a challenge to target this disease. Lack of valid animal models and efficacy/disease biomarkers and low current impact of genomics ham-per the drug-discovery process. Translational research tools may be helpful in the future for predicting drug efficacy, doses and time of administration. The belated interest in multi-target compounds in drug development was discussed and concepts for novel exploitation of monoaminergic, non-monoaminergic and combined treatments were presented. John F. Cryan, Ireland, acted as discussant and focused on the utility of current animal models. While numerous attempts have been made to create rodent models of depres-sion, there are no satisfactory animal models available. There is currently a shift to more focused research dealing with an endophenotype-style approach, selective breeding pro-grammes and incorporation of new findings from human neuroimaging and genetic stud-ies. Additionally, emphasis has also been placed recently on developing mouse models of the early-life origins of stress-related psychiatric disorders as childhood trauma and neglect exert a profound and pervasive influence on risk for affective disorder. The second discussant, Peter Riederer, Germany, focused on potential biological mark-ers for major depression. However, according to the ‘criteria of definitions,’ currently proposed markers lack specificity, sensitivity and most of them have not been evaluated in postmortem studies. Peter Riederer pointed out that there seems to be a lessening of research into major depression subtypes and consequently a lessening of homogenous causality. Without the latter, it will not be possible to detect valid biomarkers for early diagnosis, differential diagnosis and follow-up of progression and treatment responses.In the second session, Charles H. Large, Italy, presented current issues in developing drugs for bipolar disorder. Segregating bipolar disorder into symptom clusters to identify unmet clinical needs was addressed. The importance of understanding diseases to identify how to target the symptoms was also discussed. Moreover, the use of endophenotypes in translational medicine to answer issues on CNS penetration, target occupancy, required plasma levels and margins of safety was suggested. Finally, the possible use of influencing an abnormal circadian function for treatment of bipolar disorder was discussed. Haim Einat, Israel, presented the status of animal models of bipolar disorder. Modelling bipolar disorder is difficult due to the oscillating nature of the disease and the present behavioural models are limited to a very few domains of the disease. Ongoing research focuses on gene manipulation, which is challenging, since a complex interaction of a number of genes and effects of the environment may underlie the biology. Endeavours to model endopheno-types of bipolar disorder, the use of translational models and the identification of animal strains with innate behaviour were also addressed.In the last session the main lecturer, Joseph R. Calabrese, USA, discussed the design of future clinical trials in drug development for bipolar disorder. To improve the generalis-ability of clinical trials fewer exclusion criteria would be needed. Exclusion of patients may inflate/deflate estimates of true population therapeutic effect sizes. Fewer exclusion criteria could be managed by increasing sample size. Moreover, the value of enriched trial designs could be increased by using a metric to quantify the degree of enrichment. These suggestions were further elaborated on by the discussant, Eduard Vieta.During the meeting the importance of a tight collaboration between preclinical and clinical research within this area was stressed. The challenge for cross-species translational research in psychiatry is to better understand the biological bases of affective disorders and, ultimately, to treat them more effectively.

TEM Basic and Clinical NeuroscienceMartien Kas, The Netherlands, coordinator

Animal models are highly relevant to the functional testing of the neurobiological mecha-nisms underlying psychiatric disorders. However, the complexity and heterogeneity of these disorders makes it very difficult to develop these models based on the criteria of face, pre-dictive and construct validity. Genome-wide association studies have revealed novel genetic candidate genes for a wide variety of psychiatric disorders and may open novel opportunities for the development of animal models based on these genetic variations and deletions.This TEM meeting addressed the opportunities and pitfalls for translational animal mod-els of psychiatric disorders, validation of drug targets, and the role of gene by environment interactions in the development of psychiatric disorders. These three topics were pre-sented by three main lecturers: David Collier, United Kingdom, Todd Gould, USA, and Cornelius Gross, Italy respectively. Following a subsequent discussion session we agreed upon a set of guidelines/statements that we think might help guide further research in the area of translational research for psychiatric disorders. For example, animal models should be focused on clearly defined intermediate phenotypes and/or endophenotypes rather than on anthropomorphised psychiatric symptoms or complex syndromes. Furthermore, the creation of mouse models of rare human genetic variants of relatively large effect size for specific disease-relevant intermediate phenotypes and/or endophenotypes may be a promising avenue for translational studies. The complete set of guidelines will become available in a TEM report to be published on the ECNP website www.ecnp.eu.

11-12 September 2009, Istanbul, Turkey

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Other impressions from the 22nd ECNP Congress

www.ecnp.eu

Participants’ points of view and suggestions for improvement

Karol Grabowski, Poland

Areas of interest: sleep disorders, affective disorders

“The congress was great, the scientific level was very high and the organisa-tion excellent.I will apply in my daily professional life the knowledge acquired at the congress by changing the pharmacotherapy of insomnia”.

Suggestions for improvement:- To have longer breaks between

sessions. It was hard to get on time in a new session

- I would like to attend more work-shops and panel discussions

Gábor Imre, Hungary

Areas of interest: OCD, schizophre-nia and anxiety

“I enjoyed most the poster and brain-storming sessions. At the poster sessions I had the opportunity to discuss with the presenter of the poster P.4.b 002 (Effects of dopamine antagonists on therapeutic action of clomipramine in a sponta-neous alternation model of OCD in rats) a model that I have been trying to establish in our lab. He gave me great instructions on how to achieve it”.

Suggestion for improvement:- Perhaps to offer more on preclini-

cal studies

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ecnp matters ECNP Matters is a publication of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP).

Edited byMaria Vrijmoed-de Vries, The Netherlands, editorAlexander Schubert, The Netherlands, adviserJan M. van Ree, The Netherlands, adviser

Editorial CommitteeDavid Nutt, United Kingdom, chairJoseph Zohar, Israel

Executive CommitteeDavid Nutt, United Kingdom, presidentRené S. Kahn, The Netherlands, vice-presidentJoseph Zohar, Israel, president-electJulien Mendlewicz, Belgium, past-presidentHans-Ulrich Wittchen, Germany, secretaryMichel Hamon, France, treasurerCouncillors:Celso Arango, SpainNicoletta Brunello, ItalyGuy Goodwin, United KingdomEdith Holsboer-Trachsler, SwitzerlandMarc Laruelle, United KingdomMark Millan, FranceZoltán Rihmer, HungaryEduard Vieta, Spain

Scientific Programme CommitteeMichel Hamon, France, chair

Publication CommitteeJan M. van Ree, The Netherlands

European NeuropsychopharmacologyMichael Davidson, Israel, Editor-in-Chief

Contributors Ligia Maria Bohn, The NetherlandsRichard F. Cowburn, SwedenWieslaw Cubala, Poland Guy Goodwin, United KingdomKarol Grabowski, PolandJaanus Harro, EstoniaTomas Hökfelt, SwedenGeorgi Hranov, BulgariaLuchezar G. Hranov, Bulgaria

Gábor Imre, HungaryMartien Kas, The NetherlandsPetra van Kruistum, The NetherlandsAstrid Linthorst, United KingdomEduard Maron, EstoniaArne Mørk, DenmarkDavid Nutt, United Kingdom Sven Ove Ögren, SwedenJanusz K. Rybakowski, PolandJean-Pol Tassin, FranceMaria Vrijmoed-de Vries, The NetherlandsEduard Vieta, Spain

Graphic DesignPieter Hoogeveen, Design and Art DirectionThe Netherlands

Web DesignElsa Edelenbos, The Netherlands

PrintingTeewes Textpresse Grafische BedrijvenThe Netherlands

Call for copyDeadline next issue: 15 April 2010Copy (500 words maximum) can be sent to: ECNP Officeemail: secretariat@ecnp.eu

Copyright for all published material is held by ECNP unless specifically stated otherwise.ECNP Matters is carefully prepared and published. The expressed views are not necessarily those of ECNP or the editorial staff. They are the respon-sibility of the named writer of the article. The editorial staff, however, does have the right to refuse or shorten copy. The writers are consulted about major changes in the copy. Permission is given to reproduce the text of any information found in this newsletter as long as the sense is not distorted by omission or addition and the original place of publication is cited.Please inform the ECNP Office at secretariat@ecnp.eu if you have news on the passing away of ECNP members.

Calendar of ECNP MeetingsECNP Congresses23rd ECNP Congress 28 August-1 September 2010 Amsterdam, The Netherlands24th ECNP Congress 3-7 September 2011 Paris, France25th ECNP Congress 13-17 October 2012 Vienna, Austria26th ECNP Congress 5-9 October 2013 Barcelona, Spain27th ECNP Congress 30 August-3 September 2014 Helsinki, Finland28th ECNP Congress 29 August-2 September 2015 Amsterdam, The Netherlands29th ECNP Congress 17-21 September 2016 Vienna, Austria30th ECNP Congress 2-6 September 2017 Paris, France31st ECNP Congress 6-10 October 2018 Barcelona, Spain32nd ECNP Congress 6-10 September 2019 Copenhagen, Denmark

For further information:Scientific secretariat Organising secretariat 23rd ECNP CongressECNP Office Colloquium Brussels P.O. Box 85410 6, Avenue E. Van Nieuwenhuyse3508 AK Utrecht 1160 BrusselsThe Netherlands Belgiumphone: +31 30 253 8567 phone: +32 2 777 0188fax: +31 30 253 8568 fax: +32 2 779 5960e-mail: secretariat@ecnp.eu e-mail: organisingsecretariat@ecnp2010.euwebsite: www.ecnp.eu

ECNP Workshop on Neuropsychopharma-cology for Young Scientists in EuropeRecurrent topics:•Molecular neuropsychopharmacology •Behavioural pharmacology •Clinical neuropsychopharmacology

4-7 March 2010, Nice, FranceVariable topic R Bipolar disorders: towards new drug targets 3-6 March 2011, Nice, FranceVariable topic R Schizophrenia: towards new drug targets 15-18 March 2012, Nice, France

ECNP Consultation Meeting7-9 March 2010, Nice, FranceTopic: The future of the placebo in clinical trials in brain diseases

6-8 March 2011, Nice, France18-20 March 2012, Nice, France

ECNP Meeting: Neuropsychopharma-cology across Brain Diseases9-11 March 2010, Nice, France

For further information:e-mail: nice2010@ecnp.eu

ECNP-EPA Seminar in Neuropsychopharmacology22-24 April 2010, Tr̆es̆t, Czech Republic

For further information:e-mail: secretariat@ecnp.eu

11th ECNP Regional Meeting 14-16 April 2011, St. Petersburg, Russia

For further information:e-mail: stpetersburg2011@ecnp.eu

ECNP OfficeP.O. Box 854103508 AK UtrechtThe Netherlandsphone: +31 30 253 8567fax: +31 30 253 8568

Meetings national societies Italian Society of NeuropsychopharmacologyXVII National Congress: Epigenetic to Experimental and Clinical Neurobiology22-25 September 2010, Cagliari, Italy

Polish Psychiatric Association43rd Congress and celebrating the association’s 90th anniversary 23-26 June 2010, Poznan, PolandInformation: rybakows@wlkp.top.pl

Meetings related organisations 3rd European Brain Policy Forum: a focus on persons with schizophrenia and the European society 23-24 February 2010, Madrid, SpainInformation: www.spanishbraincouncil.org/ebpf2010.php

PWP Meeting (Psychiatrie in Wissenschaft und Praxis - Psychiatry in Science and Practice)6 March 2010, Vienna, AustriaInformation: www.meduniwien.ac.at/biologicalpsychiatry

11th International Geneva/Springfield Symposium on Advances in Alzheimer Therapy24-27 March 2010, Geneva, SwitzerlandInformation: www.siumed.edu/cme

2nd Biennial Schizophrenia International Research Conference –‘Bridging Research to the Clinic’10-14 April 2010, Florence, Italy.Information: www.schizophreniaconference.org

33rd Annual Meeting Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology14-17 May 2010, Ottawa, CanadaInformation: www.ccnp.ca

2010 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA)22-26 May 2010, New Orleans, USAInformation: www.psych.org/MainMenu/EducationCareerDevelopment/Meetings/AnnualMeeting.aspx

Drug Safety, Bridging the Gap25-27 May 2010, Washington DC, USA Information: www.drugsafety2010.com

5th European Molecular Imaging Meeting26-29 May 2010, Warsaw, PolandInformation: www.e-smi.eu/index.php?id=1976

18th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for Developmental Neuroscience (ISDN)6-9 June 2010, Estoril, PortugalInformation: www.isdn-conference.elsevier.com

16th Update in Psychiatry17-18 June 2010, Vienna, AustriaInformation: www.update.europe.at

2010 Mid-Year Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS)30 June-3 July 2010, Krakow, PolandInformation: www.the-ins.pl

7th FENS Forum of European Neuroscience3-7 July 2010, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsInformation: forum.fens.org/2010

16th World Congress on Basic and Clinical Pharmacology17-23 July 2010, Copenhagen, DenmarkInformation: www.worldpharma2010.org

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