40th Annual Gatlinburg Conference

PLEASE MAKE YOUR HOTEL ARRANGEMENTS NOW!

In order receive the special conference rate at the Loews Annapolis, you must make your reservations by February 5, 2007.

The Gatlinburg Conference continues its tradition as one of the premier conferences in the United States for behavioral scientists conducting research in intellectual and related developmental disabilities. The theme for the 2007 Conference is "Down Syndrome: Genes, Brain, and Behavior."

Down syndrome is the leading genetic cause of intellectual disability. Moreover, research on Down syndrome displays a level of "maturity" as regards the multi-disciplinary approaches that have been developed to investigate the causal pathways from genes to behavior. These approaches have included animal models that have been phenotyped in considerable detail, the use of fetal stem cells to study the earliest stages of neural development at a cellular level, innovative neuroimaging studies that have documented anatomical differences, psychometrically sophisticated approaches to the measurement of behavior, behavioral change related to age and in response to environmental variations, and epidemiological studies that have tracked changes in prevalence and the societal conditions responsible for those changes. In a very real sense, Down syndrome can thus be used as a model for planning investigations into less well-understood genetic conditions associated with intellectual disability.

This year's theme for the Gatlinburg conference reflects this multi-disciplinary approach to understanding Down syndrome, with invited speakers representing approaches that are perhaps less familiar to the regular attendees of the Conference, thereby enriching and expanding our conceptual and methodological repertoires. We encourage presentations on this theme from all disciplines relevant to understanding the causes, consequences, life course trajectories, and environmental circumstances of Down syndrome. Of course, we also welcome submissions on other non-theme topics of relevance to understanding developmental disabilities.

For more information visit http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/gatlinburg/.