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20-24 October 2012, Hotel La Palma, Stresa, Italy

This conference is organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in partnership with the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS)

Chairs:

Sten Grillner (Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden)
Ann Graybiel (MIT, Cambridge, US)

Deadline for application: 21. July 2013

Preliminary programme and confirmed speakers:

The Neural Underpinnings of Specific Patterns of Behaviour
L. Swanson, A. El Manira, S. Arber, O. Kiehn, J. Feldman, E. Marder, C. Bargmann
Spatial Navigation, Role of Hippocampal/Entorhinal Circuits
E. Moser, M-B. Moser
The Basal Ganglia – Habenulae complex
A.M. Graybiel, P. Bolam, A. Kreitzer, M. Kimura, R. Costa, S. Grillner, R. Anton, P. Redgrave, R. Malinow, R. Malenka, M. Brainard, J. Goldberg
Role of Pallium/Cortex in the Control of Action
A. Schwartz, C. Petersen, E. Fetz
Role of Cerebellum in Action
H. Jörntell, M. Schnitzer
Robots in Action
M. Kawato

More information

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13-17 October 2012, Hotel La Palma, Stresa, Italy

The focus of this conference will be on the molecular and cell biological mechanisms of synapse formation and function, and on the pathological aberrations of these processes that lead to neurological and psychiatric disorders.

This conference is part of a series of high-level meetings on the neurosciences in Europe. Co-organised by ESF and The Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS,  the major neuroscience association in Europe), these bi-annual conferences will bring together outstanding researchers in key broadly defined areas of contemporary neuroscience to discuss current concepts and define challenges for future research.

Application deadline: 15 July 2013.

More information

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Call for applications: Boehringer Ingelheim FENS Research Award 2014

Money prize of 25,000 Euro given in recognition of outstanding and innovative scientific contributions in any area of neuroscience research.

Applications can either be submitted by candidates themselves, or candidates can be proposed.

Applicants must be <40 yrs of age & either working in a European institution or be of European origin for researchers working abroad.

The award will be presented in Milan during the 9th Forum of European Neuroscience 2014 (July 5 – 9, 2014), where the prize winner will be asked to give a plenary lecture.

Deadline for application: July 31, 2013

MORE INFORMATION AND SUBMISSION: visit the FENS website

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EJN interview with Dan Abrams (Stanford University), first author of the EJN article “Inter-subject synchronization of brain responses during natural music listening” published in EJN in issue 37-9, in May 2013.

Music is an individualistic experience, but in this study, Dan Abrams et al.  found that different people’s brains track music in a consistent way in several key regions, including not only auditory regions of the superior temporal cortex, but also regions involved in movement planning, and memory and attention.

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When was the last time you attended a neuroscience conference where the first thing you saw as you entered was a VW camper van?  The camper van, the ‘Spaceship of Our Imagination’ was a cinema which showed films about the brain.  But if you wondered whether you were in the right place, then a huge model of the brain a few yards away left you in no doubt.

This, then, was the BNA 2013: Festival of Neuroscience, the British Neuroscience Association’s biennial conference – but this time, it was a unique event.  In parallel with a superb scientific programme, posters and an exhibition, was a public programme of events put on by the Wellcome Trust. In partnership with 18 organisations with an interest in brain research, the Festival attracted around 2000 UK and international delegates to hear from almost 240 speakers and seven plenary lectures.

The Festival was the most ambitious conference the BNA has organised and unusually, in an arts venue.  The Barbican in London is one of Europe’s leading arts centres and was ideal to bring together academics and members of the public to celebrate and explore the brain.

The scientific programme was about twice the size of previous meetings, and included topics grouped into eight broad themes that covered most areas in neuroscience. The plenary speakers were leading figures in their fields and included Uta Frith, David Attwell, Micheal White, Karen Steele, Irene Tracey, Yves Agid and Tim Bliss.  The programme included no fewer than 56 specialist symposia and workshops organised into parallel sessions, and there were about 750 poster presentations organised into three poster sessions.

The Abstract and Programme e-books are now available on the BNA website.

Coverage was broad, but some themes contributed particularly strongly to the programme. Traditionally well represented topics such as ‘Nervous System Disorders’ and ‘Molecular, Cellular and Synaptic Mechanisms’ together contributed to over 40% of the programme, but there were also some new trends: for the first time about 20% of posters and talks came under the  ‘Cognition’ theme.

Although there were a large number of conference delegates from London and the South East, we were pleased to see that the numbers from other UK and international locations were higher than those in previous meetings, with visitors from as far afield as India, China, North America, and Australia.
None of this would have been possible without the support of our sponsors.  Our major sponsor was the Wellcome Trust.  Others included the UK Research Councils, technology and pharmaceutical companies who populated the exhibition hall.  Non-profit organisations and charities also displayed their information.

The press office was a hub of high activity.  More than 50 national and journalists attended from TV and radio, newspapers, science journals and generated media coverage around the world.

As well as the delegates, between 4000 and 5000 members of the public came to the Barbican to see the public programme, Wonder: Art and Science on the Brain, an astonishing array of demonstrations, discussions and debates.  Comedian Ruby Wax discussed her battle with depression with BBC’s Claudia Hammond, and Anders Bjorklund, stem cell pioneer from Lund University told the public about the problems and prospects of stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease.

Public and delegates alike enjoyed the Festival.  The public were entranced by what they discovered, and the scientists were inspired not only by the science, but also by the idea of a Festival of Neuroscience for everyone.

For more details visit the BNA 2013: FESTIVAL OF NEUROSCIENCE website.

Photos taken by Atif Saghir.

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Looking for an easy and fast method to express transgenes in the mice brain? Find out how to achieve this by listening to this interview of the authors of the EJN Technical Spotlight on viral transduction of the neonatal brain. In this interview, the authors describe how this method provides controllable genetic mosaicism in vivo. Watch the interview to find out about the many potential applications of the technique to solve neuroscience problems and its advantages over other genetic manipulations… And get the tips from the authors on how to get successful transgene expression.

Technical Spotlight published in EJN issue 37-8, in April 2013: Viral transduction of the neonatal brain delivers controllable genetic mosaicism for visualising and manipulating neuronal circuits in vivo by Ji-Yoen Kim, Ryan T. Ash, Carolina Ceballos-Diaz, Yona Levites, Todd E. Golde, Stelios M. Smirnakis and Joanna L. Jankowsky

Continue reading »]]> EJN Article published as part of issue 37/8
by Julie S. Pendergast, Katrina L. Branecky, William Yang, Kate L. J. Ellacott, Kevin D. Niswender and Shin Yamazaki

In this EJN article, the effects of 1 week of high-fat diet consumption on tissue and behavioral circadian rhythms in mice were investigated.

To determine if the high-fat diet was accompanied by a change in eating behavior, the authors used an infrared camera to monitor eating events, which were defined as the mouse making physical contact with food. When mice were provided with chow, eating events were consolidated during the night. When mice were given a high-fat diet, the eating events shifted from occurring largely in the dark cycle to being distributed across the day and night.

EJN Blog Supplemental Videos (not peer-reviewed)

Representative videos showing the eating behavior rhythm of mice is altered by a high-fat diet.

Access full text article

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The FENS EJN Young Investigator Prize is a biennial prize and given in recognition of outstanding scientific work in any area of neuroscience to a researcher under 40 years of age at the time of application. The award is a personal prize of £7,000, sponsored by Wiley-Blackwell (publishers of EJN).

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Emre Yaksi, director of NERF, Assistant Professor at KU Leuven (Belgium), is the winner of the FENS Young Investigator Prize 2014.

Throughout his career, Dr. Emre Yaksi has developed and used optical, electrophysiological and genetic tools for studying neural computation in small genetically tractable animals, namely fruitfly and zebrafish. The unique combination of these novel technologies enables neuroscientists to design innovative experiments to study neural circuits, which were unthinkable only a few years ago. Together with his team, Dr. Yaksi explores the function and the architecture of neural circuits involved in one of the least studied sensory modalities; the chemical senses. The major goals of his laboratory is to investigate: 1) how chemosensory information is integrated and processed to generate behavior, 2)  how do the components of neural circuits interact with each other and the sensory world, 3) what functional rules govern the assembly of neural circuits in developing or adult brains.
Emre Yaksi obtained his PhD (2007) in the laboratory of Dr. Rainer Friedrich at Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg-Germany. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow (2007-2010) in Dr Rachel Wilson’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School, Boston-USA. Dr. Emre Yaksi is director at NERF (Neuroelectronics Research Flanders, Leuven-Belgium), a new research institute (founded by VIB, imec, KU Leuven) that is dedicated to study the function of brain circuits. He leads his research team at NERF since December 2010 and appointed as an assistant professor at KU Leuven since October 2011.

Emre Yaksi will be honored at the occasion of a special lecture to be given by the awardee at the 2014 FENS Forum of Neuroscience in Milan, Italy (July 5-9, 2014).

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In collaboration with FENS and Wiley-Blackwell, EJN is proud to announce the winner of the “Best Publication Award 2013″:

“Combined delivery of Nogo-A antibody, Neurotrophin-3 and NMDA-NR2D subunits establishes a functional detour in the hemisected spinal cord.” (by Lisa Schnell, Arsen S. Hunanyan William J. Bowers, Philip J. Horner, Howard J. Federoff, Miriam Gullo, Martin E. Schwab, Lorne M. Mendell and Victor L. Arvanian, published in Volume 34, Issue 8, pages 1256–1267, October 2011)

Dr. Lisa Schnell, researcher at the Brain Research Institute of the University and ETH of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, is first author of this research report that has been awarded the 2013 EJN best Publication Award.

Dr. Schnell will receive this award of £3,000 at the upcoming FENS Featured Regional Meeting in Prague, September 11-14, 2013. She will give a Special Lecture at this meeting.

The main focus of Dr. Schnell’s work is to understand the complex neuronal and molecular events that follow injury of the spinal cord. Despite early regenerative processes, functional healing of the damaged tissue does not occur. The discovery of the growth-inhibitory myelin component Nogo-A in the laboratory of Dr. Martin E. Schwab, and its subsequent neutralization with an antibody in vivo, has been a major turning point in the field of spinal cord injury. Their demonstration of long-distance regeneration of axons has had a tremendous impact on the scientific community and drew many researchers into this fascinating area. In the EJN research report that was selected as the winner of the Best Publication Award 2013, the authors have conducted anatomical tracing, electrophysiology and behavioral experiments and found that, in adult rats, the combined treatment of anti-Nogo-A antibody, neurotrophin NT-3 and NR2d subunits of NMDA receptors induced the appearance of a functional “detour” around the lesion and improved recovery of function after spinal cord injury in adult rats. This novel combination treatment holds great promise to help improve the function of the damaged spinal cord.

Dr. Schnell’s research for the benefit of paraplegic patients was supported by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

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Using EEG, low-frequency, high-amplitude oscillations are characteristic of non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM). These oscillations have been proposed to play a role in memory. In the featured article entitled “Napping to renew learning capacity: enhanced encoding after stimulation of sleep slow oscillations“, the authors found that stimulation of sleep slow oscillations by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) enhanced the ability of encoding of declarative information, but not the encoding of procedural motor-learning tasks.

Access the full text article by Daria Antonenko, Susanne Diekelmann, Cathrin Olsen, Jan Born and Matthias Mölle

“In combination with other work, these observations thus suggest that the slow wave EEG of NREM sleep may serve multiple functions. Prior literature has supported the hypothesis that slow-wave activity supports hippocampal–neocortical communication facilitating consolidation of hippocampus-dependent memory (Diekelmann & Born, 2010). The present data from Antonenko et al. (2013) suggest that, at the same time, slow EEG activity prepares neural networks to continue encoding new information following sleep.”… Access the full text Commentary by Erin J. Wamsley

The Authors

	Daria Antonenko is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Neurology (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Agnes Flöel), at the CHARITÉ UNIVERSITY MEDICINE of Berlin in Germany. Daria’s PhD studies are focused on the “Imaging and modulation of language-related processes in aging”.
	Susanne Diekelmann is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology (Advisor: Prof. Jan Born) at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
	Cathrin Olsen is a MD student at the University of Lübeck, Germany, and performs her research at the Institute of Neuroendocrinology, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jan Born, Matthias Mölle and Daria Antonenko.
	Jan Born is a Professor in the Department of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology of the University of Tübingen, Germany.
	Matthias Mölle is  a research assistant in the Department of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Neurobiology, at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

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by Ziad M. Hafed^, Lee P. Lovejoy and Richard J. Krauzlis

While microsaccadic eye movements have traditionally been viewed as random, it was recently discovered that their directions can be significantly biased by covertly attended visual stimuli. Using reversible, focal inactivation, we found that activity in the peripheral representation of the superior colliculus (SC) is necessary for this behavioral phenomenon. Our results indicate that SC activity is required for mediating the link between microsaccades and the cueing of covert visual attention.

Access full-text article

EJN Blog Supplemental Videos (not peer-reviewed)

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Technical Spotlight of EJN issue 37-8
by Ji-Yoen Kim, Ryan T. Ash, Carolina Ceballos-Diaz, Yona Levites, Todd E. Golde, Stelios M. Smirnakis and Joanna L. Jankowsky

Continue reading »]]> The FENS EJN Award is given in recognition of outstanding scientific work in any area of neuroscience. The award is a personal prize of £10,000, sponsored by Wiley-Blackwell (publishers of EJN). This prize is awarded once every two years and is presented to the recipient at the occasion of the FENS forums of Neuroscience.

We are pleased to announce that Alexander Borst, director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried (Germany) and head of the department Systems and Computational Neurobiology, is the 2014 winner of the FENS EJN Award.

How do nerve cells compute? This is the question driving Alexander Borst’s research. As an example for neural computation, Alexander Borst studies motion vision in flies, bringing together a variety of methods like computer modelling, behavioral studies, electrophysiology, calcium imaging and genetics. His research is truly innovative and multi-disciplinary including experimental and theoretical work; he is also implementing his knowledge about fly motion vision into the development of miniature airborne vehicles (the RoboFly project). Alexander Borst’s contributions over the past ten years have made him a leading figure in neural computation worldwide.

Alexander Borst will be honored at the occasion of a special lecture to be given by the awardee at the 2014 FENS Forum of Neuroscience in Milan, Italy.

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Neurons can last a lifetime, so how do these cells cope with repetitive stress exposure?

In a previous study published in EJN (Doehner, 2012), Knuesel’s Lab investigated the ultrastructural properties of Reelin-positive granular aggregates (typical feature of aging) and found accumulation of Reelin in varicosities in dendritic and axonal compartments, particularly in aged immune-challenged mice. The authors interpreted these neuronal extrusions to be a mechanism of neuronal defense against protein deposits, allowing their clearance by glia. They also hypothesized that chronic neuroinflammation could lead to the failure of neurons to extrude these aggregates and to pathological aging. In line with this hypothesis, Knuesel’s lab more recently showed a double-immune challenge led to AD-like plaques in wild-type aging mice (Krstic, 2012).

Part 1: In the first part of this EJN interview, Irene Knuesel’s close collaborator, Dimitrije Krstic presents how the phenotypical features of their aging immune-challenged mice model are reminiscent of the post-mortem findings in human patients with AD.

Part 2: In the second part of this interview, Irene Knuesel explains how this study in combination with findings published by other research groups, have led them to a new hypothesis on the sequence of cellular events leading to Alzheimer’s Disease (Krstic, 2013).

Part 3: Following these two presentations, the speakers reply to the following questions:

Q1: Are anti-inflammatory drugs protective against AD?
Q2: Is there an association between infection-induced neuroinflammation and AD?
Q3: How do the known genetic risk factors of AD fit with Knuesel’s AD hypothesis?
Q4: What about other risk factors of AD?
Q5: Could axonopathy also play a causal role in familial AD?
Q6: Are the cellular events described in Knuesel’s model relevant to other neurodegenerative disease?

Part 4: Concluding remarks and perspectives

Watching tip: You may access directly to a specific part of the video by clicking on the relevant links above.

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Alessio Fracasso, NENS trainee

NENS

The Network of European Neuroscience Schools (NENS) represents over 150 graduate schools and programs across 30 European countries that offer Masters, MD and PhD degrees in neuroscience.  To access the NENS program directory, click here.

Are you a student in a NENS program who would like to gain international experience?

Nataliia Petrenko, NENS trainee

The NENS Stipends are intended for MSc and PhD students registered at NENS member schools. Applicants are expected to spend a period of one to three months at a NENS member school of their choice, in a different European country, for the purpose of methodological training. Applicants have the possibility to either conduct an individually-arranged internship at a NENS lab or take part in organized courses offered by NENS programs.

Stipends will cover travel and accommodation costs up to 2,000€. For application forms and details please visit the NENS Stipends page of the FENS website or contact: nens-office@unil.ch

 Overall, my training stay at Ghent University was extremely interesting and productive. Despite an intensive training, learning a lot of new techniques for analyzing iEEG data, and piloting a new experimental design, I also enjoyed meeting new colleagues, to learn about their work, and have interesting discussions with different members of the department. Furthermore, I had the opportunity to attend a Social Neuroscience Symposium held in Brussels while I was doing my training stay in Ghent.”   Leonie Koban, trainee 2011

 

Next deadline is June 15th, 2013

Following deadlines:

• October 15, 2013

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Featured article of EJN issue 37-5

by Sabrina Boll, Matthias Gamer, Sebastian Gluth, Jürgen Finsterbusch and Christian Büchel

Commentary:

Access the corresponding commentary by Peter C. Holland

Biographical notes

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While creativity and analytical skills often distinguish great scientists, the art of writing a good manuscript is an acquired skill, which plays a key role in a successful scientific carrier. Here, we briefly summarize our recommendations, wishing you success for your next submission!

A good manuscript addresses a single, major scientific question and provides a clear answer to it.

Before starting to write your manuscript, consult the Instructions to Authors of the journal of your choice. Authors should adhere to the international standards for responsible research publication for editors and authors, established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Title

Provide an informative, but short title that incites reading your manuscript and allows for proper indexing (e.g., species).

Abstract (very important!)

Present the scientific question or working hypothesis addressed, summarize the results, explaining how they were obtained; draw specific conclusions and provide a general statement about the relevance of your findings.

Introduction

Succinctly present the background of your study and what is known on this topic, using accurate references; define key concepts, present the working hypothesis, and briefly outline how you proceeded to reach your goals (no results at this stage).

Methods

• Include a statement about ethical issues (animal/human research) naming the institution that approved your research protocol.
• Provide specific information on experimental animals, notably genetically-targeted strains.
• Describe your study design and indicate how many animals/subjects are included in each experimental group.
• Succinctly describe the technical procedures, with due reference to previous studies, and name key reagents without ambiguity (incl. catalogue number).
• If relevant, describe image acquisition, analysis, and processing.
• Explain how statistical analysis was performed.

An experienced user should be able to replicate your work based on the information provided.

Results

• Report your findings step by step, explaining the rational of your study but refrain from interpreting your data
• Present clear, esthetically-appealing figures to illustrate key, representative findings and demonstrate that your work was carried out with care.
• Describe control experiments, notably for testing the specificity of reagents and procedures.
• Provide the results of statistical analyses with all relevant parameters (name and result of the test, degrees of freedom, P value).

Discussion

Start with a paragraph summarizing your main findings, which you will discuss in this order; interpret your data without repeating the results; present and discuss limitations or shortcomings of your study; be positive, but do not oversell your data; show by appropriate references that you are familiar with your topic; conclude by setting your work in a more general framework.

References

Carefully select your references to give due credit to who deserves it; avoid citation bias by extensive searches in databases; verify that the citations are free of spelling mistakes.

In summary, before submitting your manuscript for publication, double-check that it contains the following key elements:

• A concise and appealing title
• A clearly stated scientific question and/or working hypothesis
• Adherence to international standards of ethics in research (human and animals) and publication
• Sufficient information in the methods and results to allow replication of the study
• Accurate citations, giving due credit to former publications

Jean-Marc Fritschy and Martin Sarter
Co-Editors in Chief, EJN

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Interview of Minna Huotilainen and Vesa Putkinen (University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland) authors of the article “Informal musical activities are linked to auditory discrimination and attention in 2–3-year-old children: an event-related potential study”, first published online in EJN on November 21, 2012. Watch this interview to find out what we know on the neuroplastic effects of music and how this study showed beneficial effects of music on the development of auditory skills.

Access the full-text article by V. Putkinen, M. Tervaniem and M. Huotilainen

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Interview of Vinay Parikh (Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA), corresponding author of the article “Diminished trkA receptor signaling reveals cholinergic-attentional vulnerability of aging”, first published online in EJN on December 11, 2012. Watch this interview to find out what we know on the role of NGF signalling on the structural integrity of cholinergic neurons in relation to Alzheimer’s Disease and how knocking down trkA receptors in the rat modeled key aspects of early stages of the disease.

Access the full-text article by Vinay Parikh, William M. Howe, Ryan M. Welchko, Sean X. Naughton, Drew E. D’Amore, Daniel H. Han, Monika Deo, David L. Turner and  Martin Sarter

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This virtual issue of EJN on “Disorders of the Nervous System”, freely available for download from the journal’s website*, is a compilation of articles describing clinical and translational neuroscience research published in 2012 (EJN volumes 35-36). This virtual issue highlights the superb quality and range of research on disease processes published by EJN. This issue also confirms the journals commitment to cover experimental, clinical, and theoretical research on disorders of the nervous system and its alterations in disease states.

As exemplified by this virtual issue, research on disorders in the nervous system has been growing rapidly, due in part to the development of new research methods for manipulating and monitoring brain function in patients and of better analytical tools for studying disease mechanisms in vitro as well as in vivo. In the past, these articles have been published in one of the journal’s five sections (molecular and developmental neuroscience, synaptic mechanisms, neurosystems, behavioral neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience). As the journal of FENS, EJN strives to represent the breadth of today’s neuroscience research. Because of the growing number of articles originating in clinical settings and focusing on disease processes, EJN is introducing a separate new section (Disorders of the Nervous System) to group articles from this field and enhance their visibility to readers and authors.

Access full Editorial

*Articles in this Virtual Issue will be made freely available until 30 April 2013

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Interview of Margaret Bell (University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA), corresponding author of the article “Adolescent gain in positive valence of a socially relevant stimulus: engagement of the mesocorticolimbic reward circuitry“, first published online in EJN on November 22, 2012. In this interview, Margaret explains the aim of this study and summarizes its findings.

Access the full-text article by Margaret R. Bell, Kayla C. De Lorme, Rayson J. Figueira, Deborah A. Kashy and Cheryl L. Sisk.

Access the Commentary by Jill B. Becker.

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Featured article of EJN issue 37-3
by Margaret R. Bell, Kayla C. De Lorme, Rayson J. Figueira, Deborah A. Kashy and Cheryl L. Sisk

Commentary:

Access the corresponding commentary by Jill B. Becker

Biographical notes

	Margaret Bell received her BA in Biology specializing in Neuroscience from Boston University in 2006.  She then joined the Sisk Lab at Michigan State University, where she received her PhD in 2012.  Her work there focused on adolescent changes in neural and behavioral responses to social cues in male Syrian hamsters, including the influences of testosterone and dopamine on this process.  She is now a postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Andrea Gore at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is investigating the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals during gestational and adolescent periods of development on brain and behavior.
	Kayla De Lorme received her BA in Biology and Psychology at Hamline University in 2005.  She then worked in a cellular neuropharmacology lab as a junior scientist at the University of Minnesota Medical School studying how xanomeline binds and activates the M1 muscarinic receptor.  In 2007, she joined Cheryl Sisk’s lab at Michigan State University.  She received her Master’s degree in Behavioral Neuroscience in 2009 and is continuing to pursue a PhD investigating how exposure to testosterone during puberty affects social cognition in adulthood.
	Rayson Figuiera received his BA in Psychology from University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1997, and his MS in Neuroscience and Behavior from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2004.  He worked as a research technician in the Sisk Lab from 2007 – 2011.  There, his research focused on whether individual differences in binge eating increased after the onset of puberty and the contributions of ovarian hormones to the propensity to binge eat.
	Deborah A. Kashy received her M.S. in applied statistics (1990) and her Ph.D. in social psychology (1991) from the University of Connecticut where she studied with David A. Kenny.  She is now a professor of psychology at Michigan State University.  She served as a senior associate editor for Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin from 2006 to2011.  In 2005 she received the Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Social Science at Michigan State.  Dr. Kashy’s research interests include models of dyadic social interaction, the analysis of nonindependent data, close relationships and relationship function, and relationship outcomes for cancer survivors and their partners.
	Cheryl Sisk received a BA in Psychology from Baylor University and a PhD in Biopsychology and Neuroscience from Florida State University.  She did postdoctoral training in neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University (Fred Turek) and in reproductive physiology at University of Texas at Austin (Claude Desjardins).  She has been a member of the faculty in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Program at Michigan State University since 1985, and served as the Director of the Neuroscience Program from 1998-2011.  The long-standing focus of research in her laboratory is how pubertal gonadal steroid hormones shape adolescent development of brain and behavior.

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Technical Spotlight of EJN issue 37-2

by Christian O’Reilly, Réjean Plamondon, Mohamed K. Landou and Brigitte Stemmer

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The 45th meeting of the European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS), which will be held September 6-9, 2013 in Munich. Being the oldest international neuroscience society, founded in 1968, the main purpose of the EBBS is to stimulate the exchange of information between scientists interested in the relationship of brain mechanisms and behaviour, in its broadest sense. Thereby this meeting is welcoming both basic scientists and clinicians, and is the ideal meeting point for everybody studying the interplay of the brain, behaviour and disease. Building on the success of the previous meetings, we will again strive to select highquality and well-balanced plenary lectures and symposia, in order to offer a varied and interesting program to the expected more than 500 attendees. The meeting is actively supported by the Munich Center for Neurosciences – Brain & Mind (MCN) of the Ludwig- Maximilians-University (LMU), which is a network comprised of all local groups and disciplines with interests related to neurobiology, cognition and “brain and mind”. The meeting will take place in the beautiful capital of Bavaria, Germany, which is easily reachable from all over the world, offers a wide variety of attractions and is the ideal place to combine work with pleasure. We will also offer a social program during the meeting and attendees are welcome to stay a few days longer to visit the world famous Oktoberfest. For all of the above reasons I am convinced that the 45th EBBS meeting will be a great success and I look forward to welcome you in Munich in September 2013. (Mathias V. Schmidt, Chair, Local Organizing Committee)

Audience
Clinical and preclinical Neuroscientists

Registration and abstract submission dates

Online registration and abstract submission is now open.

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is May 15th, 2013.

Conference Website URL
http://www.ebbs2013.com/

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Aims and Scope

TENSS is focused on experimental and theoretical methods to study how the brain operates at the level of neuronal circuits. It covers various optical and electrophysiological concepts and techniques used currently in systems neuroscience from the basics to advanced topics on both theoretical and experimental grounds. The course is designed to be a highly interactive, hands-on experience, reflecting the atmosphere of CSHL, Woods Hole or Champalimaud courses. Typically, each course day will contain an extended lab session and several theoretical lectures. Hard work will be combined with a few trips through the beautiful Transylvanian countryside. The course is addressed to a graduate student/postdoc audience.

Registration and Stipends

The registration fee is 500 Euro, which will cover full board, lodging, trips and transfer from Cluj-Napoca International Airport to Pike Lake.

A limited number of reduced registration fees or full fee waivers are available for candidates that need financial support.

Topics

- Basic Optics.
- Optical bench exercises – Lenses, optical systems, illumination methods, basic microscopy techniques. How to custom build different kinds of microscopes.
- Noise measurements and photo-sensors – Shot noise, optical detectors, amplifiers, NI-DAQ, CCD cameras, photodiodes, photo multiplier tubes (PMTs).
- Light and fluorescence microscopy – Fluorescence, FRAP, photo-activation, photo-conversion. Point spread function measurements, basic image analysis (deconvolution, denoising, PCA).
- Basic electrophysiology – Extracellular and intracellular recordings. LFP; single unit, multi-unit extracellular recordings, tetrodes, electrode arrays; patch clamp.
- Fluorescence probes – GFP, GFP based chromophores, organic calcium dyes, genetically encoded calcium dyes, pHluorins, voltage sensitive dyes.
- Techniques for electrophysiological data analysis.
- Synaptic plasticity – Long and short term plasticity. Homeostasis.
- Intrinsic Optical Imaging – Visual, auditory & barrel cortex; olfactory bulb.
- Scanning microscopy – Confocal and two-photon microscopy. Students will build a custom two-photon microscope.
- Optogenetics – Light activated ion channels and pumps.
- Awake head fixed optical and electrophysiological recording strategies in rodents.
- Viral approaches to label, monitor and alter neuronal circuits.
- Neuronal functional connectivity and neuronal connectomics – Serial electron-microscopy and trans-synaptic labeling methods.
- Synchrony and oscillations.
- Cortical attention, sparse neuronal codes.
- Decision making, uncertainty, neuro-modulatory systems.
- Theoretical and computational modeling of neuronal circuits.

 Application deadline – 1st March 2013

>>>>APPLY HERE>>>>

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Featured article of EJN issue 37-1

by Minh Nui Nguyen, Etsuro Hori, Jumpei Matsumoto, Anh Hai Tran, Taketoshi Ono and Hisao Nishijo

Commentary:

Access the corresponding commentary by Yuri B. Saalmann and Sabine Kastner

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Excerpt from the FENS Trimestrial Newsletter Fall 2012 Issue

By the Editors-in-Chief of EJN (Jean-Marc Fritschy and Martin Sarter) and the Managing Editor of EJN (Sophie Gavarini).

The design of useful clinical studies requires adherence to strict standards, including randomized assignment of subjects to conditions, blinding of experimenters, assuring adequate statistical power and employing appropriate statistical analyses, the definition – pre hoc – of major measures and end points, and explicit rules for handling outliers and missing data. There is little if any dispute that results from studies violating these standards carry little weight and in fact plenty of evidence to suggest that results from such studies are difficult to reproduce.

In contrast, preclinical experiments less consistently adopted such stringent standards. This may explain why many preclinical fields of research have experienced enormous challenges in predicting the clinical significance of their findings, and some fields look at decades of nearly complete failure to confirm preclinical predictions in clinical studies.

The US Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) convened an effort to analyze the causes for poor predictive validity of preclinical research and to propose measures designed to improve the design of preclinical experiments to a level more comparable with the standards of clinical research. We believe that the results from this effort, published recently by Landis et al. (2012), represent a major step forward and perhaps even a turning point for preclinical research. Landis et al. describe the main findings from analyses of experimental design practices in preclinical research, and they do not make for a pretty picture. From underpowered experiments to retrospective end-point selection, these shortcomings not only lead to poor predictive validity but they may also be unethical, specifically in light of the use of animals in inconclusively designed studies.

Improving the design of experiments and changing data handling practices will require “all of the above”, including better education of students and investigators in experimental design standards and statistical analyses, the more routine bringing-on-board of biostatisticians, and more thorough reviewing by funding agencies and journals. Implementing sound experimental designs and data handling procedures entail demanding steps and may often increase the costs at the level of individual research groups. In the long run, however, considering the costs of failed clinical trials, these measures have the potential to increase the overall efficacy of research.

EJN puts a premium on thorough and fair reviewing, and we have long emphasized the importance of detailed and informative reporting of statistical methods and results (Sarter & Fritschy, 2008). We, as well as our Associate Editors, are all practising scientists who therefore “feel the pain” of adopting ever more complex and demanding research standards. EJN will continue to change alongside, with editors and reviewers increasingly paying attention to the quality of the experimental design, data handling procedures and the statistical analyses described in our submissions. It is in part for these reasons that EJN does not impose word limits on methods and result sections, and why we discourage “dumping” of important descriptions of procedures and results into supplemental sections.

References

Landis, S.C., Amara, S.G., Asadullah, K., Austin, C.P., Blumenstein, R., Bradley, E.W., Crystal, R.G., Darnell, R.B., Ferrante, R.J., Fillit, H., Finkelstein, R., Fisher, M., Gendelman, H.E., Golub, R.M., Goudreau, J.L., Gross, R.A., Gubitz, A.K., Hesterlee, S.E., Howells, D.W., Huguenard, J., Kelner, K., Koroshetz, W., Krainc, D., Lazic, S.E., Levine, M.S., Macleod, M.R., McCall, J.M., Moxley, R.T., 3rd, Narasimhan, K., Noble, L.J., Perrin, S., Porter, J.D., Steward, O., Unger, E., Utz, U. & Silberberg, S.D. (2012). A call for transparent reporting to optimize the predictive value of preclinical research. Nature, 490, 187-191.

Sarter, M. & Fritschy, J.M. (2008). Reporting statistical methods and statistical results in EJN. Eur J Neurosci, 28, 2363-2364.

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Interview of Miriam Nokia (University of Jyväskylä, Finland) corresponding author of the article “Chemotherapy disrupts learning, neurogenesis and theta activity in the adult brain”, first published online in EJN on October 8, 2012.

In this interview, Miriam Nokia explains the aim of this study and summarizes its findings.

This study was carried out in the laboratory of Tracey J. Shors (Department of Psychology and Center for Collaborative Neuroscience, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA), where Miriam Nokia was a postdoctoral fellow.

Access the full-text article by Miriam S. Nokia, Megan L. Anderson and Tracey J. Shors
Access the Commentary by P. J. Lucassen

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APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 31st, 2013

Aims and Scope

This Summer School will introduce students to a revolution currently underway in how we interrogate neural circuits in order to understand the way in which they drive behavior.

We call this revolution “causal neuroscience”, because it aims to harness new technologies for manipulation of neural circuits in order to provide direct causal links between circuit elements – such as channels, synapses, specific cell types, cell assemblies – and behavior. The convergence of novel genetic, molecular, physiological, optical and behavioural approaches now provides us with the ability not only to monitor activity across genetically-defined ensembles of neurons in behaving animals, but crucially also to manipulate this activity in a temporally and spatially precise manner. Moreover, these new approaches are becoming sufficiently powerful to allow decisive tests of theoretical models, and are poised to provide new insight into the dynamics of neural circuits and our understanding of the neural code.

The Summer School builds on a very successful school held in 2011 and will inspire a new generation of young investigators by bringing them together with the leading figures in this emerging field of `causal neuroscience`.

Registration and Stipends

Registration fee: 350 € (covering tuition, accommodation and meals).

There are a few travel grants available for candidates from disadvantaged countries (please indicate in your online application). Any applicant in need of a grant should however first try to request it from the lab, institution or government if possible.

Once an applicant has been accepted to the school, the available grants will be provided on the basis of need.

Topics

The school will cover the spectrum of recent advances in this exciting field, beginning by introducing the latest array of methods and tools that have been developed in order to express genetically encoded sensors and actuators in defined populations of neurons. On the second day, speakers will illustrate the advantages of simpler model systems (e.g. drosophila and zebrafish) for probing circuit function. Then, we will highlight how these approaches are beginning to be used in the mammalian brain to probe sensory transmission and generation of motor commands, and to manipulate more complex behaviors (such as spatial navigation or decision-making). The meeting will close with a session devoted to the tremendous potential of these approaches for understanding disease processes and for developing new treatments.

School website

Apply

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Featured article of EJN issue 36-11

by Miriam S. Nokia, Megan L. Anderson and Tracey J. Shors

Commentary:

Access the corresponding commentary by P.J. Lucassen

Biographical notes

	Miriam Nokia got her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in 2009. Her thesis focused on hippocampal theta activity related to learning. Dr. Nokia then did a post-doc in the Department of Psychology, Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University under the supervision of Dr. Tracey Shors. In the Shors lab, Dr. Nokia studied the connections between hippocampal theta activity, adult neurogenesis and learning. At the moment, Dr. Nokia holds a position as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and continues to work on brain oscillations, adult neurogenesis and learning.
	Megan L. Anderson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Neuroscience at Rutgers University. She was also a National Science Foundation sponsored Integrated Science and Engineering of Stem Cells IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) fellow. Her thesis work in the laboratory of Dr. Tracey J. Shors is focused on understanding how learning enhances the survival of new neurons that are generated through a process known as adult neurogenesis in the adult brain. Her work in the Shors Laboratory has demonstrated that learning rescues new neurons from death only when it occurs during a critical period one to two weeks after a new neuron’s birth. She is working to identify the mechanism by which learning promotes survival during this window of time. Ms. Anderson’s research has the potential to ameliorate symptoms of decreased brain function as a result of chemotherapy, alcohol and/or stress.
	Dr. Tracey J. Shors is Professor II in the Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers University. She received her doctorate from the University of Southern California with postdoctoral training in neurophysiology, also at USC. Over a decade ago, it was “rediscovered” that the brain continues to produce new neurons throughout life, a process known as neurogenesis. Dr. Tracey J. Shors has associated neurogenesis with select processes of learning and memory. Her laboratory also determined that learning keeps new neurons alive — but only if the learning process is challenging and successful. Dr. Shors is currently translating her laboratory results into healthy humans as well as those suffering with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her laboratory has been funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation.

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What it is

The Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium (NPRC) is an alliance of neuroscience journals that have agreed to share article reviews, at the author’s request. Its goal is to speed and enhance peer review by reducing the number of times that manuscripts are reviewed, thereby reducing the workload on reviewers. A complete list of consortium journals can be found at the Consortium’s website, which is hosted by the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility. EJN is member of the NPRC.

How it works

Authors of a manuscript that has not been accepted (e.g. was rejected) by a consortium journal (journal 1) can submit their manuscript to another consortium journal (journal 2) after appropriate revision and have the original reviews from journal 1 forwarded to journal 2. It is the authors’ choice whether or not to request that a set of reviews be forwarded. The only information that journal 2 will receive is the text of the reviews that were sent to the authors and, if the reviewers have agreed, the names of the reviewers (which will not be released to the authors). No other information about the manuscript will be exchanged between journals. Forwarding of reviews is all-or-none. Authors may not select which reviews will be forwarded. If a manuscript went through multiple rounds of review at the first journal, the reviews from all rounds will be forwarded.

When authors request to have the reviews forwarded to journal 2, there are 3 possible outcomes:

1. If the Editors of journal 2 consider that the comments of journal 1 have been properly addressed and that the manuscript fits the aims and scope of journal 2, they may accept the manuscript without additional external review. This considerably reduces the handling time of the manuscript by the second journal. At EJN, we have accepted such manuscripts within one week of receiving the papers.
2.  If the Editors of journal 2 consider that the comments of journal 1 have not been satisfactorily addressed or they feel the article is not a good fit for journal 2, they can editorially reject the manuscript very quickly, which again saves time on handling of the manuscript.
3. The Editors may decide that the manuscript needs to be sent out to external reviewers again. They may decide to invite reviewer(s) who originally reviewed the manuscript for journal 1 or “new” reviewer(s).

How to submit through the NPRC track

1. Reformat your paper to journal 2′s specifications.
2. Submit your paper to journal 2 with a cover letter that identifies the name of journal 1 and the manuscript ID that was given by journal 1. In addition, when you submit your paper through the NPRC track, at EJN we request that you submit a point-by-point response letter to the previous reviews (when you upload your manuscript files, please upload this letter as a separate word file (.doc) with the file designation “Authors’ responses to reviewers”).
3. Request the Editorial Office of journal 1 to forward the reviews to journal 2, along with the name of the reviewers who reviewed for journal 1 (it is at the reviewers’ discretion to have their names released to journal 2). In your email to journal 1, please specify the title of the original paper, the name of Journal 2 and manuscript ID (both the one given by journal 1 and the new one given by journal 2). To contact the Editorial Office of EJN, please email editorial.office@ejneurosci.org The contact information of each consortium journal is available at http://nprc.incf.org/journals
4. The editors of journal 2 will use forwarded reviews at their discretion. They may use those reviews directly to make a decision, but may also request further reviews if they feel it is warranted.

What’s in it for you?

1. Faster peer-reviewing
2. Higher rate of acceptance (if you have made appropriate revisions to original reviews). At EJN, the acceptance of NPRC manuscripts is twice as high as that of regular submissions.
3. Reviewing workload decreased, means more time for your research

NB:

• Note that only articles submitted after January 1, 2008 are eligible.
• Journals members of NPRC do not accept “confidential comments to the editors” anymore in order to achieve a more transparent review process.
• Although the Consortium provides a valuable new opportunity, no one is required to take part. If authors do not wish to have their reviews forwarded, nothing will be exchanged between journals, and authors can submit their manuscript to another journal without its history being known.
• If reviewers do not want their identity revealed to the editors of journal 2, they have the option of remaining anonymous.

Full details of the review-sharing process can be found at the Consortium’s website.

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Technical Spotlight of EJN issue 36-10

by Zoltán Somogyvári, Dorottya Cserpán, István Ulbert and Péter Érdi

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Featured article of EJN issue 36-9

Tiziana Cotrufo, Rosa María Andrés, Oriol Ros, Francesc Pérez-Brangulí, Ashraf Muhaisen, Giulia Fuschini, Ramón Martínez, Marta Pascual, Joan X. Comella, Eduardo Soriano

Commentary:

Access the corresponding commentaryby Katherine E. Horn and Timothy E. Kennedy

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Major vault protein promotes locomotor recovery and regeneration after spinal cord injury in adult zebrafish

by Hong-Chao Pan, Jin-Fei Lin, Li-Ping Ma, Yan-Qin Shen, Melitta Schachner

Graphical Abstract

MVP expression levels increased in the spinal cord caudal to the lesion site after spinal cord injury (SCI) in adult zebrafish. Inhibition of MVP by morpholino in vivo impairs recovery of locomotor functions of zebrafish and results in reduced regrowth of axons from the brain. These findings indicate that MVP is an essential regulator of regeneration after SCI and that it may be a potential target for therapy of acute central nervous system lesions.

Access full-text article

EJN Blog Supplemental Figures (not peer-reviewed)

The Authors have provided these extra two figures related to this study, specifically for the EJN Blog:

Supplemental Figure 1. MVP expression in normal fish and sham-injury control. (A) MVP expression shows no difference in normal fish when compared to the sham-injured control by Western blot analysis 4 hours after laminectomy. (B) MVP expression shows no difference in uninjured fish when compared to the sham-injured control also by immunofluorescence. MVP (red), DAPI (blue). * indicates the central canal. Scale bar, 100 μm.

Supplemental Figure 2. Immunohistology of MVP expression in the spinal cord. (A-C) MVP expression in the sham-injured control at 11 days and 3 weeks after laminectomy. (D-F) MVP expression in the spinal cord at 11 days after SCI. (G-I) MVP expression in the spinal cord at 3 weeks after SCI. MVP expression 4 mm caudal to the injury site is increased surrounding the central canal at 11 days (D-F) and 3 weeks (G-I) after SCI when compared to the sham-injured control (A-C). MVP (red), DAPI (blue). * indicates the central canal. Scale bar, 200 μm.