2025 Inhibitions in the CNS Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar - Project Summary The next Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on inhibition in the Central Nervous System will be convened at Sunday River in Newry, Maine, United States, on July 6-11, 2025. This international research conference has been held every two years since 2005 as part of the GRC conference series. As in previous years, it will be preceded on July 5-6, 2023, by the Gordon Research Seminar (GRS), which provides a unique atmosphere for junior scientists, including postdocs and graduate students, to discuss and exchange novel findings and ideas in preparation for the GRC. Inhibition in the Central Nervous System is mainly driven by the neurotransmitter GABA, which has been proven to be fundamental for brain function and, when perturbed, it results in dysfunction. A deeper understanding of inhibitory neurotransmission and its function in health and disease emerges centrally in the design of novel therapeutic interventions for targeting inhibitory mechanisms to treat devastating brain disorders, chiefly including neurological and child developmental disorders. Therefore, our application aligns well with the mission statements of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). GRC will provide a major forum where leaders in the field and junior scientists who are rising new stars will have the opportunity to exchange novel concepts and approaches to advance the field. The general scientific goal of this meeting is to explore leading topics in the field of inhibition in healthy brains and to better understand the role of altered inhibition in neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. To achieve this goal, the meeting will pursue the following specific aims: to select speakers that will discuss cutting-edge fundamental research questions in inhibition within health and disease, to increase diversity and promote network collaborations, provide training, networking and career promotion of graduate students and postdocs. The meeting will attain these aims by selecting 34 world-class speakers and 10 discussion leaders, many of whom are junior group leaders from 10 different countries (24 US-based scientists, 23 women). These speakers are leading experts in inhibitory function and dysfunction across model organisms (murine to human), brain areas (subcortical to cortical), levels of investigations (molecules to systems) and approaches (experimental and computational). We will also introduce new topics on rapidly emerging areas that were not covered in previous meetings. These include a topic on the relationship between inhibition and adult neurogenesis, a session on inhibition in subcortical circuits and, and a topic on computational modeling inhibitory function in healthy and diseases circuits. There is growing evidence linking deficits of inhibitory function to neurodevelopmental and neurological disorders. As such, the GRC/GRS meetings’ emphasis on health impact will maximize the discussion of fundamental questions in this field and seek novel therapeutic targets of inhibitory circuitries to treat devastating brain disorders.
