The Convenors of the inaugural “Heart and Mind” Psychogenic Heart Disease Conference held in Prato in September this year, wish to thank all the delegates and speakers for their participation. The event has been considered an outstanding success. All of our speakers offered valuable contributions in this unique area and new collaborations and friendships have been formed. The conference finished with a stunning dinner in an ancient villa in the Tuscan hills, complete with a medieval flag throwing exhibition, and a tenor and pianist, creating a concert-like end to a wonderful and very worthwhile event. We are being encouraged to organize a followup meeting, and plans are being considered for another conference sometime in 2010. If you would like to be placed on a mailing list to receive details, please contact the Conference Organizer, Jeanette Bourke, at jeanette.bourke@bakeridi.edu.au

The Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute is Australia's highest profile and most productive cardiovascular research institute. The commitment of the institute to the mental stress - coronary heart disease field is evident in the fact that the research of one of four divisions of the institute is confined to this area.

The conference will have as its centrepoint the link between psychological medicine and cardiovascular disease, aiming to delineate the relationship between stress, psychiatric illnesses and the development and course of heart disease and hypertension. It will showcase the crucial epidemiology, the mediating neural and other mechanisms, and the social and psychological measures applicable to prevention and treatment. There will be invited addresses by international leaders in the field. The target audience will be general practitioners, cardiologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, epidemiologists and social scientists.

Conference themes include:

• Mental stress links to coronary heart disease and hypertension
• The mediating biology of psychogenic heart disease
• Genetic and epigenetic contribution to the brain/heart disease nexus
• Stress, gender and heart disease
• Depressive illness and coronary heart disease
• Indigenous populations at particular risk
• Cardiovascular disease accompanying psychiatric illness
• Mind-heart interaction in therapy
  • Cardiac devices causing anxiety disorders
  • Impact of cardiac surgery on cognition and mood
  • Cardiac safety with psychoactive drugs
• Psychosocial measures for secondary prevention of heart disease
• Clinical pathways for management of mental illness in cardiovascular disease

We promise to provide an instructive and exciting program, blending research and patient care elements. The direct participation of internationally renowned scientists, and practitioners from the fields of psychology, psychiatry and cardiovascular medicine will ensure this.

Confirmed keynote speakers are:

Professor Nancy Frasure-Smith (Canada), who was responsible for the first, definitive evidence that depressive illness causes coronary heart disease.

Professor Andrew Steptoe (UK), who's pioneering studies demonstrated the link between mental stress in the workplace and the development of hypertension.

Dr Ilan Wittstein (USA), who in a famous New England Journal of Medicine Paper described the syndrome of "Tako-tsubo" (octopus pot heart), a mental stress-induced cardiomyopathy, first described in Japan, but now known to be truly international.

Professor Murray D Esler AM FAA MBBS, PhD, FRACP Associate Director Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute Professor of Medicine Monash University Australia

Professor Graham D Burrows AO KCSJ BSc, MB, ChB, DPM, MD, FRACZCP, FRCPsych, MRACMA, Dip. M. Hlth.Sc (Clinical Hypnosis) FAChAM, DSc Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Australia