March 18, 2002

Conference brings leading scientists to Toronto to discuss latest findings, treatments for emotional disorders

12th Annual Conference: Emotions and the Brain

Toronto, ON – When the World Trade Centre towers came crashing down in New York City last September, our emotions ran the gamut from initial shock and terror to feeling anxious, listless or angry. In the first hours and days of the attacks, we had trouble concentrating on our work.

Eventually we returned to our daily routines with a hopeful feeling that life would go on, and eventually good would triumph over evil. But not everyone experienced normal emotional reactions to the tragedy. For some, the horrible events of 9/11 triggered post-traumatic stress, depression or other emotional instability that required treatment.

Scientists from around the world are meeting in Toronto next week to share the latest research about the biological and psychological bases of emotional disorders such as depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety and panic as well as emotional disturbances associated with medical and neurological diseases such as stroke, head trauma, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s.

More than 600 neuroscientists and clinicians from over 20 countries will attend the 12th Annual Rotman Research Institute Conference on March 25-26 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. This year’s topic is Emotions and the Brain.

Why do some people have a hard time coming to terms with horrific events or coping with life’s daily stresses, to the point where they may develop an emotional disorder? Are some of us born with a neurological predisposition to not handling stress well, or worrying too much, or seeing the cup as always half empty? Are we hard-wired from birth to be an optimist or pessimist? How much is hard-wired and how much is modifiable by environmental stimuli (i.e. things that happen to us in life)? What happens in the brain when these emotional reactions occur?

Participants at the conference include the world’s leading experts in the science of understanding emotions. They’re interested in the brain processes that regulate the evaluation of emotional stimuli in our environment and why we have different emotional reactions. Their work provides critical building blocks to understanding the brain and emotions — and is fundamental to future progress in developing more effective treatments.

According to the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario, one quarter of Canadians will experience a serious mood disorder at some time in their life. Only half will seek treatment, and of those who do only 50% will be successfully treated.

“We are at a point in our approach to the care of patients with mood disorders where we have many effective treatments, and yet there are still people who don’t respond,” says Dr. Helen Mayberg, Rotman scientist and Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Mayberg is co-chairing the conference with Dr. Donald Stuss, Director of The Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and a frontal lobes expert.

“There is significant trial and error in treatments today,” adds Karen Liberman, Executive Director of the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario. “Whether it’s drug therapy, psychotherapy or a combination of both, the reality is that there is a very strong component of ‘if it works, use it’.”

But science is gaining new insights into what Mayberg describes as the “highly choreographed, hard-wired relationship between the emotional and thinking areas of the brain”. Powerful imaging technology is helping scientists understand how the intricate circuitry of the brain works to regulate mood. The technology is creating an elaborate movie of the working brain when it feels happy, sad or even fearful.

Advancing knowledge of the genes that control brain systems has shed new light on how mood disorders can cluster in families and pass down from generation to generation.

Among the presenters at this year’s Rotman Conference are Peter Lang (U.S.) — how the brain processes visual scenes to make us feel repulsed or attracted to an image; Richard Davidson (U.S.) – why some of us recover faster from negative emotional stimuli than others, and why some people have a more negative disposition than others; Edmund Rolls (Britain) –brain mechanisms that evaluate and learn which stimuli are rewarding and punishing are essential to our survival; and Paul Costa (U.S.) – the way we react emotionally to the world (temperament) is inherent from early childhood.

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For more information on this release, or to obtain a copy of the conference schedule, please contact:

Kelly Connelly
Media Relations,The Rotman Research Institute
Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care
(416) 785-2432
kconnelly@baycrest.org