News

The Hot Brain 3: UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology's third Climate Change conference

On 20 May 2025, UCL Queen Square Institute held Hot Brain 3, the latest in an annual series of hybrid conferences about climate change and brain health, with over 250 attendees from around the world.

New film highlights the hidden impact of climate change on brain health

A powerful short film, from the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Climate Change Commission, FutureNeuro Research Ireland Centre, RCSI University of Medicine & Health Sciences & UCL, sheds light on the urgent need to address the impact of climate change on brain health.

Professor Sanjay Sisodiya has been awarded one of the first UCL Grand Challenges of Climate Crisis Small Grants Award.

• Climate Change and Chronic Diseases: highly-resolved disease-specific pilot study. £10,000
  • Professor Sanjay Sisodiya   
  • Professor Anna Mavrogianni

UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology achieves Gold in UCL Sustainability awards 2024

We're delighted to announce recognition of UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology's commitment to sustainability by receiving all Gold LEAF and Green Impact awards in 2024.

The Hot Brain: UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology’s Climate Change conferences

As registration opens for Hot Brain 2: Climate Change and Brain Health, Professor Sanjay Sisodiya (Deputy Director for Sustainability and Climate Change, Queen Square Institute of Neurology and founder of Epilepsy Climate Change) looks back on their first climate change conference in 2023. Faculty Sustainability Blog post

UCL Sustainability Leadership Conference 2024

The first Sustainability Leadership Conference took place at UCL East 18-19th April 2024, as a joint venture ran by the Students’ Union UCL and Sustainable UCL . You can read the reflections of Shashwat, ION Student Sustainability Ambassador, and one of the student delegates, on the SU website.

Awards

• Global epilepsy consortium wins PR award for COP26 campaign 
• EnvironMental Issue wins Bronze in Clios Health 2022 awards 

Faculty of Brain Sciences Sustainability blog

Faculty Sustainability Committee have launched their own blog. Be sure to check in regularly to see what they get up to in their mission to bring the issue of sustainability to the forefront of our agenda. ION features in this blog post

Articles

• Gulcebi, M.I., Leddy, S., Behl, K. et al. Imperatives and co-benefits of research into climate change and neurological disease. Nat Rev Neurol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-024-01055-6
• Sisodiya SM Hot brain: practical climate change advice for neurologists Practical Neurology Published Online First: 10 November 2023. 
• Sisodiya SM. Climate change and neurology: time to talk and to act. Lancet Neurology 2023 
• Dr Olga Tiurikova discusses a novel alternative to the use of animals in astroglia research. In this blog, Dr Olga Tiurikova, Research Fellow in the Department of Clinical & Experimental Epilepsy at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology talks about the benefits and challenges of using human brain tissue in research. 
• Heatwaves may increase likelihood of seizures in people with epilepsy Heatwaves can worsen abnormal excitability of the brain in people with epilepsy, finds a new small-scale patient study led by clinical scientists at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology.
• Climate change likely to aggravate brain conditions In a Personal View article, published in The Lancet Neurology ahead of Hot Brain 2, a  team of researchers led by Professor Sanjay Sisodiya emphasise the urgent need to understand the impact of climate change on people with neurological conditions. 
• Dr Sara Leddy blog post on her research project investigating the effects of climate change on people with neurological diseases.