Updated: Wed, 10/02/2024 - 13:45

From Saturday, Oct. 5 through Monday, Oct. 7, the Downtown and Macdonald Campuses will be open only to McGill students, employees and essential visitors. Many classes will be held online. Remote work required where possible. See Campus Public Safety website for details.


Du samedi 5 octobre au lundi 7 octobre, le campus du centre-ville et le campus Macdonald ne seront accessibles qu’aux étudiants et aux membres du personnel de l’Université McGill, ainsi qu’aux visiteurs essentiels. De nombreux cours auront lieu en ligne. Le personnel devra travailler à distance, si possible. Voir le site Web de la Direction de la protection et de la prévention pour plus de détails.

Event

9th Theodore L. Sourkes Lecture in Neuropharmacology

Thursday, October 24, 2024 16:00to17:00
McIntyre Medical Building Room 521 (Meakins Amphitheatre), 3655 promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, QC, H3G 1Y6, CA
Price: 
Free

Speaker: Professor Tomas Hökfelt, PhD

Department of Neuroscience Karolinska Institutet Stockholm, Sweden

https://ki.se/en/people/tomas-hokfelt


“From catecholamines to neuropeptides – a 60-year odyssey”


Abstract

In this talk, honouring the memory of the Theodore L. Sourkes, I will draw upon my lifelong research experience to describe the evolution of some fundamental aspects of neurotransmission. My work began with the localization of monoamines like noradrenaline by electron microscopy, and later, with the application of the Falck- Hillarp technique, which provided new insights into catecholamines as significant neurotransmitters in the central nervous system. These advances also permitted to unravel the role of catecholamines in neuroendocrine models and to study the effects of drugs on catecholamine turnover. Additionally, these developments led to the application of immunohistochemistry to studies on the monoamine systems, a methodology that signified an important inroad to our discoveries of neuropeptides as neuromodulators or neurotransmitters in the nervous system— an aspect that will be the central focus of this presentation. As such, we were able to unravel the role of a neuropeptide such as galanin in pain and depressive-like behavior. Furthermore, our studies revealed alterations in transcript levels, methylation patterns, and peptide content in specific regions of human postmortem brains from patients who had committed suicide. After many years of uncertainty, it is now clear that neuropeptides play essential roles in the nervous system, with several FDA approved drugs targeting neuropeptide signaling currently in therapeutic use.

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