Keynote Speakers

Wednesday, 3 September 2008

1:00pm - 6:00pm: Registration Opens at Monash University Prato Centre - Main Foyer

2:00pm - 5:00pm Pre-meeting Workshop
CBT and other interventions in patients with Cardiovascular Disease
Dr Marlies Alvarenga

3:00pm & 5:00pm: Guided walking tours of the walled city of Prato (Optional- 3 tours in total)

6:00pm - 8:00pm: Welcome reception on the Palazzo Vaj terrace, Monash University Prato Centre

Thursday, 4 September 2008

8:15am: Meeting opening
Prof Murray Esler: Head Cardiovascular Neuroscience Division, Baker IDI Heart and Disease Institute

8:30am - 10:30pm: STRESS, ANXIETY and HEART DISEASE
Chair: Dr Gavin Lambert

Keynote Speaker:

  • Dr IIan Wittstein (Baltimore, USA)

The Cardiovascular consequences of acute psychological stress

Prof Don Byrne (Canberra, Australia)
Work stress and distress as risks for cardiovascular disease

Prof David Nutt (Bristol, UK)
The role of brain 5HT and GABA-A receptors in stress-induced cardiovascular responses

Dr David Barton (Melbourne, Australia)
Brain neurotransmitters,sympathetic nervous system biology and cardiac risk in panic disorder

10:30am - 11:00am: Morning Tea

11:00pm - 12:30pm: STRESS, ANXIETY and HEART DISEASE (Cont.)
Chair: Prof Don Byrne

Prof Richard Kvetnansky
Gene expression of catecholamine enzymes in hypothamalic nuclei and hearts of rats exposed to emotional stress

Prof Tevor Day (Coauthor Rohan walker) (Newcastle, Australia)
Using animal models to probe the neurobiological basis of depression- related pathophysiology: Opportunities and limitations

Dr Eugene Nalivaiko (Newcastle, Australia)
Central 5-HT receptors in cardiovascular control during stress

Dr Assam El-Osta (Melbourne, Australia)
Modifications to the epigenome regulate gene transcription

12:30pm - 1:30pm Lunch

1:30pm - 4:00pm: DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS and HEART DISEASE

  • Keynote Speaker: Professor Nancy Frasure-Smith

Dr Lloyola McLean (Coauthors Christopher Tennant, Christopher Ward, Geoffrey Berry, Vicki Maddison, Walter Chen, Marie-Christine Morel-Kopp, Geoffrey Fofler) (Sydney, Australia)
Type D (distressed) personality as a link between affect dysregulation and the stress system disorders of depression and cardiovascular disease

Dr Alex Brown (Alice Springs, Australia)
Cardiovascular disparity and vulnerable populations: Stress and heart disease in indigenous Australians

Dr Danielle Esler (Darwin and Torres Strait Islands, Australia)
Sadness and Heart Disease. Assessment of a Depression Screening Tool for use with Aboriginal Ischaemic Heart Disease Patients

Dr. Gavin Lambert (Melbourne, Australia)
Depression and Cardiac Risk - The Mechanisms at Play

4:30pm - 6:00pm: Poster sessions with wine and cheese

7:00pm: Evening free

Dr David Barton
Optional interactive session with participating psychiatrist and psychologist: "Medical Marriages"

Friday, 5 September 2008

8:30am - 10:30am: MIND, TREATMENT INTERACTIONS IN HEART DISEASE
Chair: Prof David Nutt

Prof Graham Burrows (Melbourne, Australia)
Psychiatric Illness and Heart Disease: Overview

Prof Julian Smith (Melbourne, Australia)
Cognitive Function After Cardiac Surgery

Anna Trzcieniecka-Green (Coauthors Katarzyna Sitnik-Warchulska, Alicja Michalak, Daniel Jakubowski, Zbigniew Gasior, Lech Polonski (Silesia, Poland)
The effects of early psychological intervention on emotional well-being of patients following MI and CABG. Affective disorders as risk factors for delirium after cardiac surgery

Dr Liz Painter (Coauthor Iris Fontanilla) (Auckland, New Zealand)
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock: Sitting on a time bomb

Dr Svein Bergvik (Coauthors Rolf Wynn, Tore Sorlie) (Tromso, Norway)
Gender differences in CABG and PCI treated patients

Prof Chris Pantelis (Melbourne, Australia)
Title and Abstract to be received

10:30am - 11:00am: Morning Tea

11:00am - 12:30pm: STRESS and HYPERTENSION

  • Keynote Speaker: Professor Andrew Steptoe (London, UK)

Dr Xuping Bao (Coauthors Milos Milic, Brian Kennedy, Paul Mills, Brinda Rana, Joel Dimsdale, Daniel O'Connor, Michael Ziegler) (San Diego, USA)
Common promoter haplotypes contribute to epinephrine-synthesizing enzyme PNMT activity, autonomic function, and cardiovascular risk

Prof Guido Grassi (Milan, Italy)
Prognostic Significance of BP and Sympathetic Nervous System Responses to Exercise and Stress

12:30pm - 1:30pm: Lunch

1:30pm - 3:00pm: Clinical updates - Meet the experts:
Chair: Prof Graham Burrows

  • Cardiology for Psychiatrists and Psychologists

Prof Garry Jennings (Melbourne, Australia)
(Accompanying persons can attend this session)

  • Psychiatry for Medical Internists

Dr. Rosemary Schwarz (Melbourne, Australia)
(Accompanying persons can attend this session)

3:00pm: Afternoon Tea

3:30pm - 5:00pm: PSYCHOGENIC CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE:
MECHANISMS, OVERVIEW, CLINICAL INTERVENTIONS
Chair: Prof Graham Burrows

Murray Esler (Melbourne, Australia)
Chronic Mental Stress is a Cause of Essential Hypertension: Presence of Biological Markers of Stress and Relevance to Prevention and Treatment

Margaret Morris (Coauthors Farzin Guilak, Ethan Gorenstein, Richard Sloan, Larry Jamner, Qusai Kathawala, Michael Labhard, Bill Deleeuw) (INTEL Corporation, Columbia University and University of California Irvine, USA)
Facilitating emotional self-regulation and preventive cardiology in everyday life: Themes from an exploratory field study of the "Mood Phone"

Prof Marion Worcester (Melbourne, Australia)
Psychological Outcomes of Acute Cardiac Events

Prof Prasuna Reddy (Melbourne, Australia)
Implementation of a primary care program for management of complex comorbidities: Depression, diabetes and coronary heart disease

4:55pm: Scientific Session Summation and Close
Professor Garry Jennings, Director Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute

6:00pm Buses leave from Piazza Santa Maria delle Carceri for Farewell Dinner in Tuscan Hills

7.00pm Conference Dinner - Villa Artimino

Professor Nancy Frasure-Smith

Professor Nancy Frasure-Smith

Nancy Frasure-Smith received a PhD in Social Relations from the Johns Hopkins University and completed an NIMH Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Psychology at McGill University. She is currently Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University, Senior Research Associate at the Montreal Heart Institute, Adjunct Professor of Nursing at McGill University, and Invited Researcher at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM). She is a Past President of the American Psychosomatic Society. Dr. Frasure-Smith and her colleague Dr.François Lespérance are known internationally for their work bringing depression to the forefront of research in behavioral cardiology. They are examining the importance of depression and other psychological and social factors in the development and prognosis of cardiovascular disease, studying the physiological and behavioral links between depression and cardiovascular disease, and developing and evaluating interventions to change the impact of the depression and other psychological factors in cardiac patients. They recently carried out a multi-site, randomized trial of Interpersonal Psychotherapy and Citalopram in patients with stable coronary artery disease that was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and are currently conducting a trial of omega-3 fatty acid for depression. Recent publications have appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry, JAMA, American Journal of Psychiatry, and Biological Psychiatry.

Professor Andrew Steptoe

Professor Andrew Steptoe

Andrew Steptoe is British Heart Foundation professor of psychology at University College London. He graduated in Natural Sciences from Cambridge, and completed his doctorate at Oxford University in 1975. He was appointed lecturer in psychology at St. George's Hospital Medical School in 1977, becoming professor and chair of the Department in 1988. He moved to his present research chair in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London in 2000. He is a past-president of the International Society of Behavioral Medicine and of the Society for Psychosomatic Research. He was founding editor of the British Journal of Health Psychology, an associate editor of Psychophysiology, the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, and the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, and is on the editorial boards of seven other journals. He is author or editor of 16 books, most recently Depression and Physical Illness (CUP, 2006). His main research interests are in psychosocial aspects of cardiovascular disease, health behaviour, and psychobiology.

Dr Ilan Wittstein

Dr Ilan Wittstein

Dr. Wittstein is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the division of cardiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He received his B.A in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. in 1985 and his medical degree in 1990 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and then served as Assistant Chief of Service on the Osler Medical Service. After completing fellowship training in cardiology at Johns Hopkins where he concentrated in heart failure and cardiac transplantation, Dr. Wittstein joined the division of cardiology as full-time faculty in 1998. His clinical focus has been in the areas of critical care and heart failure/transplant. His research has included work in basic cell signaling as well as the effect of nitric oxide on cardiac function. More recently, Dr. Wittstein's research has focused on the effects of emotional and physical stress on cardiac contractile function as well as the effects of neurologic injury on myocardial contractility. In February 2005, his manuscript in the New England Journal of Medicine brought international attention to the poorly recognized syndrome of Stress Cardiomyopathy (Broken Heart Syndrome), a syndrome of acute myocardial stunning that is believed to be catecholamine mediated. He is currently involved in both clinical and basic projects that are attempting to define the precise pathogenesis of this syndrome. He is nationally recognized for his work on Stress Cardiomyopathy and is an expert in the field of stress related cardiac disease.