Business leaders from across the neurotechnology industry will gather in San Francisco for a two-day investment and management conference for neurotech entrepreneurs, executives and investors.

Sessions at the Neurotech Leaders Forum to be held on October 20-21 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel will cover a range of technologies and market segments in the neurodevice sector, including neuromodulation, neural prostheses, neurodiagnostics, and neurostimulation. Attendees will hear from some of the leading researchers and entrepreneurs developing clinically and commercially promising products such as cochlear implants, stroke rehabilitation devices, implanted pain stimulators, neural-computer interfaces, and advanced brain sensing technologies.

The afternoon of the first day of the conference features two intensive courses for neurotechnology professionals, one devoted to funding opportunities and the other to fundamentals of the technology. The second day of the conference features a keynote address from Alan Levy, President and CEO of Northstar Neuroscience Inc. There will also be panel discussions on key issues affecting the industry, such as regulatory and reimbursement issues, licensing, and partnering.

Topics to be covered include: Basics of Neurotechnology with Warren Grill, Ph.D, Senior Technical Editor, Neurotech Reports; Neuropharmacology Industry Fundamentals with Zack Lynch, Managing Director, NeuroInsights; Launching a Neurotech Startup with Alan Levy, Ph.D., President and CEO, Northstar Neuroscience; Neurotechnology Industry Update with James Cavuoto, Editor and Publisher, Neurotech Reports; The Role of Government in Neurotechnology with Glenn Cornett, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Financial Editor, Neurotech Reports, Joe Pancrazio, Ph.D, National Institutes of Health, Jeff Newman, California Technology and Commerce Agency, Gail Schechter, BioIntelligence; Entrepreneur Panel with James Cavuoto, Mark Carney, CEO, Andara Life Science, Elisabeth Hager, CEO, GentCorp., and Andrew Barriskill, CEO, Restorative Therapies, Inc.; New Technologies Panel with Warren Grill and John McDonald, M.D., Ph.D., Director, International Center for Spinal Cord Injury; and Venture Capital Firms Perspective with Leslie Bottorff, Onset Ventures, Roger Quy, Technology Partners, Daniel O'Connell, NeuroVentures Capital, Alex Arrow, Lazard Capital Markets.

I traveled to the University of Pennsylvania yesterday to speak to graduate students and professors associated with the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Besides my talk that covered some of the social implications of the rapidly developing neurotechnology industry I had an opportunity to meet with several researchers doing some very interesting research. Here is a quick slice of what these researchers are up to:

Robert Forman: Impact of the Internet on distribution and delivery of legal and illegal drugs via the web. Persuasive research that will surely influence the drug importation debate.

Anjan Chatterjee: The historical analogies between the birth and growth of cosmetic surgery and cosmetic neurology. Very impressive parallels that include the dynamics of market forces.

Amishi Jha: Functional neuroimaging experiments on how neuropharmaceuticals and meditation influence similar aspects of attention in adult ADHD. Persistent meditation can improve focus.

Martha Farah: Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience since 1999. Empirical examination of how a variety of neuropharmaceuticals impact "normal" individuals.

Paul Wolpe: Where to start? Busy bio-neuroethicist who is about to get a lot busier. Writing a book on biotechnical augmentation and ethics. Paul is a very bright individual and this book should be an important contribution. Told me to read the book Better Than Well.

While is was a quick 23 hour trip, it was well worth the time. It was especially nice to meet several students who drove down from Princeton for the talk. For more on the great research occurring at Penn I recommend visiting www.neuroethics.upenn.edu.

People reach their peak of alertness between 6pm and 7pm according to Circadian Technologies. From an evolutionary perspective, this time of day, early evening, was most likely spent securing the hearth for a safe night's sleep. Human alertness also rises at dawn or early morning. While a CMO magazine piece warns employers that trying to mess with this natural cycle won't get them very far, emerging neurotechnologies from companies like Cortex Pharmaceuticals are making are making headway on improving alertness and attention.

Located in Irvine, California, Cortex is a neuroscience company focused on novel drug therapies for neurological and psychiatric disorders. The company is pioneering a new class of proprietary pharmaceuticals called AMPAKINE compounds, which act to increase the strength of signals at connections between brain cells. The loss of these connections is thought to be responsible for memory and behavior problems in Alzheimer's disease. Many psychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia, occur as a result of imbalances in the brain's neurotransmitter system. These imbalances may be improved by using the AMPAKINE technology.

A recently completed clinical study with AMPAKINE compounds in patients with schizophrenia indicated improvement in a number of symptoms also common to patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ("ADHD"'). The US Department of Defense is also studying the use of these compounds to improve alertness in air force pilots and infantry.

Cultural differences appear to exist between how Chinese and Americans perceive and remember visual stimuli. New research conducted by Richard Nisbett, a social psychologist and author of the Geography of Thought, has shown that Chinese and American students differ in the way they look at and remember a complex visual scene. Science summarized the experiment in the following way:

"Wearing headsets with a built-in eye movement tracker, 25 American and 27 Chinese graduate students were asked to observe 36 pictures -- each with an object against a realistic background. The Americans zoomed in on the foreground object earlier and for a longer time than did the Chinese who spent more time taking in the background and less time studying the object. The result, the Chinese tended to recall background more accurately, whereas Americans remember more about the central object."

This research could have interesting implications for how different neurotechnologies could impact cultures in unintended ways. But before we jump to any conclusions I'd like to see a larger study done that included young children to see how and when this behavior is emerges.

For those in the Philadelphia area, I'll be giving a talk on Monday at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at noon. Come discuss our emerging neurosociety with me and many others.

If you are in the Philadelphia area next Monday, come down to the University of Pennsylvania where I will be kicking off their 2005-06 cognitive neuroscience lecture series with a talk on Our Emerging Neurosociety: How Neurotechnology is Shaping Business, Politics and Culture.

Time: Mon, Sep 19 2005, 12:00-1:15PM in Room 400A, 3401 Walnut
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Talks. A big thanks to Martha Farrah for setting this up.

What will they think of next? MIT's Technology Review reports on the following:

"Drug companies make $2.5 billion a year selling Viagra, Cialis and Levitra to help men enjoy sex. Since more women suffer from sexual dysfunction than men, developing a drug that could double those sales would seem to be a no-brainer. Yet the pharmaceutical industry has failed women miserably -- there isn't a single sexual dysfunction drug on the market that can help them. Pfizer Inc. last year abandoned an eight-year Viagra study involving 3,000 women, conceding that its famous blue pill only works for men.

While Pfizer and other pharmaceutical titans have abandoned the pursuit of a Viagra for females as too complicated, a growing number of university researchers are reporting progress with the help of brain scanners and other technology.

Yes, they're watching women's brains while they have orgasms. And they're coming to some interesting conclusions."

While Big Phama may have given up on FSD, several smaller companies are making progress, including: Nastech Pharmaceutical (apomorphine HCI) in Phase II; Solvay Pharmaceuticals (Estratest) in Phase II; BioSante Pharmaceuticals (LibiGel) completed Phase II; and Palatin Technologies (PT-141) in Phase II.

UC Merced, the 10th campus in the University of California system, welcomed it's first 1000 students today. The selection process for a new UC Campus began back in 1988 and the Merced site was selected in 1995. It's the first UC undergraduate campus to be built since UC Santa Cruz opened in 1965.

Merced is located in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, within a two-hour drive from the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, and from the natural beauty of the Pacific Ocean and Yosemite National Park. There are currently three schools within the university: Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts.

Renewable energy systems will be a major focus at the university along with a heavy emphasis on interdisciplinary research. As a graduate of UCLA who developed my own interdisciplinary education across three schools (evolutionary biology, environmental science and then a graduate degree in economic geography), I hope that UC Merced will continue to devote resources to help students cross traditional boundaries.

It looks like they are starting out with a good foundation. As Jessica Green, assistant professor in the UC Merced School of Natural Sciences put it,"...it's cool, I sit next to a philosophy professor, a Chinese historian, a mathematician, a physicist and a poet." If that's not interdisciplinary, then I don't know what is.

We all feel pain. Some 87 million Americans and over 290 million individuals worldwide suffer from some form of chronic pain. Sales of therapeutics for pain management reached over $20 billion last year, up 11%.

To learn more about the past, present and future of the pain management market then don't miss the latest issue of Neurotech Insights - the neurotechnology investment newsletter. Included in this issue:

-Next Generation Pain Treatments (in-depth analysis with latest clinical trials)
-Interview with Pain Therapeutics CEO, Remi Barbier
-Discussion of neurostimulation treatments for pain management
-Market analysis of public companies (RNVS, CEPH, MDT, DOVP, NTII, SHPGY)
-Deals, alliances and financings
-Neurotech Index performance (companies treating neurological diseases)

If you are an investor, corporate executive, researcher, or someone who suffers from chronic pain I recommend picking up the latest copy of Neurotech Insights - the biweekly neurotechnology investment newsletter.