The neurobiology of grief as an emerging research field has the potential to provide mechanistic and systems-level insight into this nearly universal stressful life event. However investigators using animal and humanneurobiological models to study grief have very little contact preventing exchange of information with hightranslational value. This application for an R13 grant is to provide travel support for a diverse group ofresearchers to attend and actively take part in two annual conferences on the social neuroscience of grief. Theinaugural Social Neuroscience of Grief: 2020 Vision meeting will take place January 24 26 2020. SocialNeuroscience of Grief: Early Adversity and Later Life Reversibility will take place January 22 24 2021.Both conferences will be held at the University of Arizona in Tucson Arizona.By age 65 40% of women and 20% of men will cope with the death of a spouse. Older adults are at particularrisk for social isolation and increased bereavement-related mortality tied to suicide and cardiovascular events.A recent explosion of grief research includes: 1) an animal model of spousal bereavement developed in voles2) construction and inclusion of prolonged grief disorder in the ICD-11 and 3) the first human fMRIbereavement studies. Overlapping findings in the neural mechanisms of grief in both human and animalmodels point to the involvement of the HPA axis and the nucleus accumbens brain region among others.Conference organizers will include the PI of this application Mary-Frances O'Connor PhD (University ofArizona) Zoe Donaldson PhD (University of Colorado) and Oliver Bosch PhD (University of Regensburg).Key leaders in the field who have agreed to attend will include mid-level junior faculty (including two K01awardees) and advanced doctoral students. Emergence of translational models is most likely to succeed byproviding younger investigators access to cutting edge models and current researchers in the field. Plannedadvertisement will attract additional participation estimated at 40. No other scientific meetings overlap with thecontent of the proposed conferences.The 2020 and 2021 Social Neuroscience of Grief conferences will give researchers an opportunity to 1) obtainknowledge about state-of-the-art animal and human research on grief and 2) interact with like-mindedinvestigators and trainees to foster collaborations develop a translational model of the social neuroscience ofgrief write a review paper for neuroscience journal(s) and develop symposia submissions. This scientificknowledge and these investigator interactions are critical to translating basic research into clinical impact forthose suffering from this devastating life stressor especially in the later years of life.