Third Annual OBI Symposium: Neuroimmunology of CNS Disorders

Third Annual OBI Symposium: Neuroimmunology of CNS Disorders is organized by University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Center and will be held from Mar 27 - 28, 2024 at T. Boone Pickens Biomedical Building at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, United States of America.

Description:
Neuroimmunology is a term coined in the 1960s that describes how immunological events can affect the nervous system.  Although neuroimmunology research has been dominated by work on the human demyelinating disorder multiple sclerosis (MS), it has increasingly become evident that aberrant innate and adaptive immune response initiate and perpetuate inflammation in many other neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Perhaps more than any other biomedical discipline, neuroimmunology has been very dynamic over the past two decades and now encompasses disorders that were previously considered to be exclusively neurodegenerative, including Alzheimer dementia, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington’s disease, leukodystrophies, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke.  In addition, new categories of autoimmune disorders have been established and characterized, including antibody-mediated autoimmune encephalitides, central nervous system (CNS) vasculitis, channelopathies, neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein-associated disorder (MOGAD), and paraneoplastic disorders.  Finally, new potentially pathogenic biological pathways are being established for traditional neuroimmunological disorders, including Guillain-Barre syndrome, MS, myasthenia gravis, and other channelopathies, including observations on the gut-brain axis.

Our one-and-a-half day live symposium will consist of five sessions: 1) Viral Models of CNS Autoimmunity (Early MS); 2) MS Phenotypes; 3) Disease-Modifying Factors in CNS Autoimmunity; 4) Cellular Mediators of CNS Inflammation; and 5) Other Neuroinflammatory Conditions (Psychiatric Disease, Neurodegeneration, encephalitides), featuring didactic lectures, case studies, and interactive Q&A/Discussion sessions.

Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:
1) Identify and analyze key pathogenic events initiating and perpetuating inflammation in human autoimmune disorders of the central nervous system;
2) Recognize key features of central nervous system autoimmunity;
3) Discuss novel clinical and paraclinical surrogate disease markers of autoimmune disorders of the brain and spinal cord;
4) Utilize neurological therapeutics targeting the immune system for providing high-quality care/tailored treatment approaches;
5) Apply strategies linking advances in basic neuroimmunology to psychiatric disease relevance and management.