25/05/2012

The Biennial Conference Barcelona-Pittsburgh (BCNPIT), that this year arrived to its 8th edition, has been again a refence in the field of Alzheimer throughout three days in which have met the most important world experts in Barcelona. Organized by the Dr. Mercè Boada, director of the Fundació ACE and of the group of Alzheimer at Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), the BCNPIT of this edition had as mainstream 'Dementia today'. The conference was preceded during the morning of Wednesday, the 23rd of May by the satellite symposium 'NeuroGenetics'.Already in program of the conference, Wednesday evening began with interactive training workshops. Thursday 24th May opened with a session about cognitive reservoir, the brain, and the individual variability and dementia. The second session of the day was about the aging brain. On Thursday evening there were two conference. In the first one, Dr. Jesus Ávila talked about traslational research in dementia. Dr. Ávila, member of the External Scientific Council (CCE) of VHIR, was presented by the director of this center, Dr. Joan Comella.Dr. Reisa Sperling spoke later about the neuroimaging as a biomarker in clinical trials. The program of Thursday was closed with a session about a look to the future of the treatment, which was introduced by Dr. Boada. In the first session of Friday 25h the issue was genetics, with conferences of the Dr. Agustín Ruiz, from Fundació ACE, and Gerard D. Schellenberg. Dr. Xavier Estivill also spoke about RNA toxicity in trinucleotide-repeat neurodegenative disorders. The last session of BCNPIT discussed about neuroimaging.The closing conference of this edition was made by Dr. Lewis H. Kuller, with the title 'Is dementia nevitable?'.