News Release

Scientists Studying Hormones and Behavior to Meet in Baltimore

The first meeting of the newly founded Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology will be sponsored jointly by The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. It will begin with a 7 p.m. reception on May 27 at the Baltimore Hilton Hotel, 20 W. Baltimore Street, and will conclude on May 31.

Behavioral neuroendocrinology deals with how hormones -- substances secreted by the endocrine glands -- are integral to many aspects of behavior, from sex to aggression, depression to age-related changes in the brain. The meeting will feature about 175 scientific presentations on research probing the interrelationship between hormones, the brain and behavior.

A recurring theme will be how hormones bring about changes to the properties of neurons, actually altering structures in the brain -- a process known as brain plasticity -- and how such changes might have profound behavioral implications. For example, scientists have learned that hormones can induce changes in the hippocampus, a structure in the front of the brain that is critical for memory in humans.

Hormones also regulate feelings of satiety and are important for the control of appetite.

Other findings show that estrogen plays a key role in learning and memory, and the hormone may provide protection against Alzheimer's disease. Such hormones induce genes inside brain cells to produce proteins that ultimately cause changes in brain structures. The structural changes, in turn, result in changing behavior.

"That's how you get the link between the hormone secretion, the brain and behavior," said Gregory Ball, a behavioral neuroendocrinologist at Johns Hopkins.

Basic research in the field with animals has yielded important findings that are relevant to clinical research on people in areas such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, obesity, reproductive function and behavior.

For example, scientists have been studying how environmental pollutants called estrogenic compounds can cause cancer and have profound effects on the reproductive function of animals. Findings from that work might be used to study clinical populations of people. Other scientists have turned to behavioral neuroendocrinologists to learn why some mice that lack specific genes are unusually aggressive.

Ball, a professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Psychology, helped organize the meeting, along with behavioral neuroendocrinologist Randy Nelson, also of Johns Hopkins. Margaret McCarthy, an assistant professor of physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, also was a co- organizer of the meeting, which will be held in conjunction with the 29th Annual Conference on Reproductive Behavior.

The behavioral neuroendocrinology society was founded this year because no other group specifically suited the needs of researchers in the field, said Emily Rissman, an associate professor in the biology department at the University of Virginia. Rissman was one of three behavioral neuroendocrinologists who initiated efforts to form the new society, which has about 300 members.

The society's first president is Arthur Arnold, a professor of neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Journalists who are interested in learning more about the meeting may call Ball, at 410-516-7910, Nelson at 410-516-8407, or McCarthy, at 410-706-2655. Information also is available by pointing your Web browser to:

http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~nelson/sbnprogram.html
http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~nelson/sbn.html