National Neurotrama Symposium

The annual symposium of the National Neurotrauma Society (NNS) is the primary forum for exchanging information in the fields of both traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). This application seeks funding to support 20 pre- and postdoctoral trainees to attend the 34th National Neurotrauma Symposium and partial support for travel of 67 invited speakers. The meeting will be held at the Lexington Convention Center in Lexington, KY on June 26 – 29, 2016. NNS will co-host the meeting with the Joint Section of Neurotrauma/Critical Care of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The 2016 meeting will be the 6th year for this collaboration, which has been very successful and has enhanced the conference by attracting more neurosurgery and neurocritical care clinicians. Members of the Joint Section are included in the Program Planning Committee to ensure a sufficient mix of clinical and translational basic science topics. Eight plenary sessions will highlight a variety of topics important to brain and spinal cord research: 1) What is mild TBI?, 2) Advances in Clinical Trial Design, 3) Acute Cellular Pathophysiology of Neurotrauma, 4) Engineering Approaches for Functional Restoration After Spinal Cord Injury, 5) Advances, Challenges and Opportunities in CNS Regeneration, 6) A Primer on Imaging: From Animal Models to Human Subjects, 7) Big Data Approaches to Neurotrauma, and 8) Emerging Therapeutics for Neurotrauma. Twelve breakout sessions covering TBI and SCI basic science as well as clinical topics will discuss, to name a few, management of autonomic dysfunction, spreading depolarizations, restoration of respiratory function after SCI, TBI translational biomarkers, sex differences in CNS injury, and some new, emerging and alternative therapeutics for neurotrauma. Six 3-hr workshops will also cover a variety of issues from standardization of blast research methods to “zero-to-one” thinking and innovation in approaches to studying CNS injury. Further, NNS is strongly rooted in mentorship of its trainees. Women in Neurotrauma (WiNTR) will hold two luncheon educational events – one discussing clinical trials in TBI and SCI, and the other focusing on alternative career choices. In addition, WiNTR will again sponsor a workshop on the topic of human TBI neuropathology. A team-building workshop for trainees will be provided by the Lexington Adventure Center to bring young investigators together to network and learn the art of collaboration. Another important component of this annual conference is a segment called The Patient’s Perspective, which fosters awareness about living with the consequences of neurotrauma and keeps scientists and clinicians alike focused on why we do what we do. This year’s presentation will be by Dr. Maria Garay-Serratos, who after suffering years of physical abuse from her father and watching the same treatment of her mother, started the Sojourner Center in Phoenix, AZ, to protect, house and educate women who have been abused. The strong connection for this meeting is that a national survey showed ~70% of battered women suffer from TBI. Finally, a special session employing the technique of “Data Blitz”, brief and to-the-point communication of submitted abstracts, will also provide an opportunity for the most cutting edge hot topics to be discussed at the program.