12th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, ICON 2014

There are 5 ICON T-Shirts left for purchase - 1 x Large, 4 x X-Large. If you would like to own one of these shirts (AUD$30 plus postage), please email [email protected].

Hope everyone has had a wonderful time this week. Safe travels home! Feel free to post your favourite conference photos to our Facebook wall.

With one day to go, we still have a great program ahead!
At this time, what are some of your personal research highlights from your ICON experience? Please share on ICON 2014 Attendee Facebook Forum

Don't forget about the ICON Kick-On tonight. It's a great chance for some casual drinks with live music from 6pm, and a DJ from 9pm for those who are keen to party on!

Hope everyone enjoyed the conference dinner - at the after party.

Here's a sneak peak at the ICON Social Event! Keep an eye on the registration satchels for more details...

Welcome to Brisbane! If you're already here, check out the Noodle Night Markets at Southbank, just near the conference venue. Enjoy exploring Brisbane, and I'll see you all at ICON tomorrow night!!

http://brisbane.goodfoodmonth.com/noodles

Night Noodle Markets - The Brisbane Times Good Food Month 2014 Brisbane’s favourite eateries are dishing up everything from charcoal-grilled yakitori sticks to gyoza; steaming bowls of Vietnamese pho and ramen as well as Asian-influenced desserts. Read all about it here.

Only one day until the Facebook Friends special price for a dinner ticket finishes so if you haven't emailed us yet to get your ticket(s) do so before close of business tomorrow (Monday). Tickets are $69.30 each and there's only a few left so email [email protected] quickly to get this great deal!

Assen Jablensky, Winthrop Professor of Psychiatry, University of Western Australia, is one of the Discussants at the upcoming RDoC Workshop. As part of his opening statement, he will argue that:

"The rationale of the NIMH initiative to propose the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project is to create a strategic science alternative to the current DSM/ICD classification of psychiatric disorders.

The “seven pillars” of RDoC are: primacy of translational research; integration of neuroscience and behavioural science; a quantitative dimensional approach to psychopathology; development of instruments allowing measurement of the entire range of variation from normal to abnormal; sampling strategies unbiased by DSM/ICD diagnoses; and an evidence-based selection of ‘units of analysis’ or ‘constructs’ for the conceptual model. These are appealing strengths of the RDoC design which aims to cut across the conventional diagnostic boundaries in order to reveal unexpected patterns of associations with symptoms, personality traits and behaviour.

Yet there are caveats to this approach. Patients entering the psychiatrist’s office present with their phenotype and not with their genotype or biosignature. It is unlikely that the evaluation of their stories would evade the necessity of a first-line phenomenological approach and of ‘pattern recognition’ of the clinical syndrome. Thus, both categories and dimensions are likely to continue co-existing as two sides of the same coin."

Don't miss this opportunity to be informed about this exciting initiative that is already influencing NIMH funding in cognitive neuroscience research into mental health. This perspective is transformative of the way we conceptualise typical and atypical development and how we study it in the future.

If you haven't registered for the RDoC workshop (being held Sunday afternoon before the conference), then there are a limited number of tickets still available. Only $75. To register email [email protected]. http://www.icon2014.org/ehome/icon2014/199134/?&

Just over a week to go... who's excited? The Conference Handbook has gone to print - an early copy was given to us by our lovely printer Jim. Early next week you'll get an email from us giving you some more information, details on when you can register etc, as well as a discount voucher for the Airtrain (which travels from the airport to the city). What other information would be helpful for you?