Parvo- and Magnocellular Symposium in Sendai

Welcome to Sendai! I’m really glad to be able to organize ‘Parvo- and Magnocellular Symposium in Sendai―Creating a New Stream of Neuroendocrinology’.

Symposia of an identical title have been organized by Jeff Tasker at Tulane University during terms of Annual Meetings of Society for Neuroscience when they were held in New Orleans.

An idea came to us, while I was staying at Jeff’s lab last year, that we would have another Parvo- and Magnocellular Symposium in Sendai right before the Japan Neuroendocrine Society Meeting. Greti Aguilera at NIH and Jim Herman at University of Cincinnati also expressed their willingness to participate, and that encouraged me, together with Yoichi Ueta, Sonoko Ogawa, and Mitsuhiro Kawata, to organize this symposium.

The paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei of the hypothalamus comprise parvo- and magnocellular cells, which are regarded as prototypes of neuroendocrine neurons. Thanks to the recent technical developments, including tissue-specific gene targeting, optogenetics, and genome-wide DNA analyses, we are entering a new era of neuroscience, and neuroendocrinology is no exception.

I hope that this symposium will help overview recent progress in this field and encourage researchers, especially those at their earlier stage of careers, to create a new stream of neuroendocrinology. I look forward to shearing new ideas and making discussions with you in Tohoku University Gonryo Kaikan.