Press contact: Donna Urschel (202) 707-1639
Public contact: Elizabeth Gettins (202) 707-0081
The conference will be live-tweeted from the Library's Twitter account @LibraryCongress, hashtags #stressimpact #klugectr

March 21, 2012

Panelists and Agenda for “The Profound Impact of Stress” Conference

The Library of Congress has announced the panelists and agenda for its two-day conference, "The Profound Impact of Stress: Human Biology and Social Implications for the Individual and Society."

Sponsored by the Library’s John W. Kluge Center, the conference will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, March 26 and Tuesday, March 27 in Room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The conference is free and open to the public. Reservations are not needed, but appreciated. Call or e-mail Elizabeth Gettins at (202) 707-7678 or eget@loc.gov.

The conference has been organized by Dr. George Chrousos and Dr. Philip Gold. Chrousos, a former Kluge Center Chair of Technology and Society, is an internationally known researcher and expert on stress. He is chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Athens School of Medicine in Greece and the former chief of the Pediatric and Reproductive Endocrinology Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health. Gold, a member of the Library’s Scholars Council, has been at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center since 1974. His research has focused on the body’s generalized stress response and its relationship to major depression.

Additional participants are:

• Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti, professor of neurophysiology and human physiology at the University of Turin Medical School and at the National Institute of Neuroscience in Italy.
• Carolyn Brown, Ph.D., director of the Office of Scholarly Programs at the Library of Congress.
• Dr. Daniel J. Clauw, professor of anesthesiology, medicine and psychiatry at the University of Michigan.
• Lorah D. Dorn, Ph.D., director of research in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
• Margaret Ensminger, Ph.D., professor in the Health, Behavior and Society Department at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
• Philippe Goldin, Ph.D., a research scientist and director of the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience Group in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University.
• Joan Halifax, Ph.D., a Zen Buddhist roshi and abbot of the Upaya Zen Center and Institute in Santa Fe.
• Dr. Dori Reissman, medical director of the World Trade Center Health Program within the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, housed within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Dr. Robert Romero, chief of the Perinatology Research Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Development at the National Institutes of Health.
• Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal, clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and researcher who first described seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and pioneered the use of light therapy.
• Dr. Robert Schneider, director and senior investigator at the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa.
• Dr. David Spiegel, director of the Center on Stress and Health at Stanford University.
• Dr. Pathik D. Wadhwa, professor of psychiatry and human behavior, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine.

SCHEDULE

Monday, March 26

Moderator Day 1, Chrousos
8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast
9 a.m. Welcome (Brown)

Part I: The Stress System and the Neurological Basis of Emotion
9:15 a.m. Physiologic and Molecular Characterization of the Stress System in Health and Disease (Chrousos)
10:30 a.m. Break
10:45 a.m. Neurological Basis of Consciousness, Emotion and Feeling, and the Response to Stress (Goldin)

Part II: Stress and the Lifecycle
11:30 a.m. Prenatal Stress and Its Impact on the Individual (Romero)
12:15 p.m. Lunch
1:30 p.m. Early Life Stress, Infancy and Childhood, and Its Impact on Society (Wadhwa)
2:15 p.m. Stress in Puberty and Adolescence (Dorn)
3 p.m. Break

Part III: Dysregulation of the Stress System and Resultant Illness
3:15 p.m. Role of Stress in Psychiatric Illness (Gold)
4 p.m. Pain and Fatigue States, PTSD and War Syndromes (Clauw)
4:45 p.m. General Discussion
5:15 p.m. Reception

Tuesday, March 27

Moderator Day 2, Halifax
8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast
9 a.m. Recap of First Day and Discussion (Gold)

Part I: Stress and Society
9:30 a.m. Stress and Socioeconomic Status (Ensminger)
10:15 a.m. Break
10:30 a.m. Placebo and Nocebo Effects in Human Societies (Benedetti)

Part II: Stress and Resilience
11:15 a.m. Neurocardiology and Strategies for Resilience (Schneider)
noon Lunch
1:30 p.m. Managing Stress with Transcendental Meditation (Rosenthal)
2:15 p.m. Support Groups Improve Survival in Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer (Spiegel)
3 p.m. Break
3:15 p.m. Acute and Chronic Effects of Stress and Strategies for Resilience (Reissman)
4 p.m. Recap and Discussion (Chrousos)

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PR 12-058
03/21/12
ISSN 0731-3527

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