UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences

The Queen Square Library has been awarded a grant of £82k from the Wellcome Trust to catalogue and preserve the collections of case notes and films held as part of the Queen Square Archive. The library is jointly funded by UCL Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery.

Listen to The Ear, the first in a new series of podcasts called Body Pods. The Ear has been made by David Rosenberg, co-founder of experimental theatre company Shunt and UCL Ear Institute's Director,  David McAlpine. Body Pods is co-produced by Fuel and Roundhouse. To find out more visit fueltheatre.com

 Vitamin D supplements may have wide-ranging anti-ageing properties including the preservation of eyesight, according to research by UCL scientists. Read: Independent, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mirror, Express More: BBSRC press release

The EpiPGX Consortium, coordinated by UCL Institute of Neurology's Professor Sanjay Sisodiya,and involving 15 partners from 8 countries, has received almost €6 million funding from the European Union FP7 programme to investigate the genetic basis of responses to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in epilepsy.

Over 50,000,000 people across the world have epilepsy. For many people, AEDs are simply not available, or the choice is extremely limited. In other countries, several AEDs are available to be prescribed, but the evidence guiding choice of drug for an individual patient is very limited. The EpiPGX Consortium will explore the influence of genetic variation on responses, both desirable and undesirable, to AEDs, aiming to identify genetic variants that will guide treatment choices at the individual level.

The Consortium is coordinated by Professor Sanjay Sisodiya (Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy), with the following partners: Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), Istituto Giannina Gaslini (Italy), Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen (Germany), Stichting Epilepsie Instellingen Nederland (The Netherlands), Universitaetsklinikum Bonn (Germany), Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (Ireland), Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (UK), Islensk Erfdagreining EHF (Iceland), Universite Du Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht (The Netherlands), The University of Liverpool (UK), Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (UK), University of Glasgow (UK) and GABO:mi Gesellschaft fur Ablauforganisation:milliarium mbH & Co. KG (Germany).

The Consortium welcomes collaboration. Please contact Professor Sisodiya for further information.

Congratulations to UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience’s Professor Vincent Walsh, who has been awarded the prestigious and highly competitive Royal Society Industry Fellowship. UCL Enterprise have also selected Vince as a 2012 Knowledge Transfer Champion.

Congratulations to Professor Ray Dolan who has been elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for “sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology”.

Professor Michael Hanna has been appointed as the new Director of the UCL Institute of Neurology and will commence his appointment in January 2012.

Congratulations to Professor Clare Fowler, UCL Professor of Uro-Neurology at the UCL Institute of Neurology and Honorary Consultant Uro-Neurologist at the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH Trust, who has been awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours List "for services to Uro-Neurology".

Dr Tali Sharot (UCL Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences) explains how she discovered the optimism bias, and how it helps to keep people feeling happier.

A patient who is part of the first UK trial to evaluate the impact of 'deep brain stimulation' on Tourette's - a collaboration between the UCL Institute of Neurology (Unit of Functional Neurosurgery) and the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery - has experienced a dramatic recovery.