Neuroscience Symposia

2020 Neuroscience Symposium

Now in its 11th year, the renowned UCL Neuroscience Symposium is a fantastic opportunity to find out more about the latest neuroscience research at UCL. Due to the ongoing situation around COVID-19, the symposium will go ahead as a half-day online event.

Registration is essential in order to receive the joining instructions for the event. These will be sent out to those who have registered a couple of days before the event.

Speakers:

Keynote: Professor Ed Bullmore (University of Cambridge)
Dr Tiago Branco (Sainsbury Wellcome Centre)
Professor Karen Duff (UK DRI at UCL)
Professor Pasco Fearon (UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences)
Dr Vilaiwan Fernandes (UCL Division of Biosciences)
Dr Peter Kok (Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging)

The full programme is available here.

2019 Neuroscience Symposium

The UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2019 took place on Friday 21 June. Over 800 attendees from UCL and beyond enjoyed a day of fascinating talks and plenty of opportunity to network with colleagues and build new collaborations.

The abstract booklet for the UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2019 is now available to download: View Poster Abstract Booklet (pdf)

There were two very popular poster sessions with 93 research posters across 8 themes:

Cognition and Behaviour
Developmental Neuroscience
Disorders of the Nervous System
Homeostatic and Neuroendocrine Systems
Neural Excitability, Synapses and Glia Posters
Novel Methods, Resources and Technology
Other Posters e.g. History of Neuroscience
Sensory and Motor Systems Posters

Speakers

The 2019 keynote addresses were delivered by Professor Professor Li-Huei Tsai, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ‘Network level approaches to studying Alzheimer’s Disease’. And Professor Gero Miesenböck, University of Oxford – ‘Mechanisms for balancing sleep need and sleep’

We also had talks from five UCL speakers:

Professor Andreas Schaefer - From Synchrotrons to Microwires – a broad view on sensory processing
Professor Olga Ciccarelli - Advances in imaging in multiple sclerosis
Dr Benedetto di Martino - Value, uncertainty and behavioural control
Professor Tali Sharot - Affect and decisions-making in health and disease
Professor Maria Chait - How the brain discovers structure in sound sequences – from environmental sounds to music

Early Career Neuroscience Prize

The 2019 Early Career Neuroscience prize was won by Dominic Evans and Vanessa Stempel (Junior Category), and Nathan Skene (Advanced Category). The prize aims to recognise outstanding work published in the past year by early career UCL neuroscientists in any field of neuroscience, and is awarded in two categories; junior scientist (PhD students or post-docs with up to 3 years post-doc experience) and advanced scientist (from 4 and up to 10 years post-doc experience). Winner received a cash prize and had the chance to present a talk on their winning paper at the Symposium.

Junior Category

Dominic Evans and Vanessa Stempel, UCL Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

Winning Paper - A synaptic threshold mechanism for computing escape decisions. Evans DA, Stempel AV, Vale R, Ruehle S, Lefler Y, Branco T. Nature. 2018 Jun; 558(7711):590-594

Advanced Category

Nathan Skene, UCL Institute of Neurology

Winning Paper - Genetic identification of brain cell types underlying schizophrenia. Skene NG, Bryois J, Bakken TE, Breen G, Crowley JJ, Gaspar HA, Giusti-Rodriguez P, Hodge RD, Miller JA, Muñoz-Manchado AB, O’Donovan MC, Owen MJ, Pardiñas AF, Ryge J, Walters JTR, Linnarsson S, Lein ES; Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, Sullivan PF, Hjerling-Leffler J. Nature Genetics. 2018 Jun; 50(6):825-833

Jon Driver Prize

One winner was awarded the Jon Driver prize gave a 5 minute talk:

Sean Cavanagh, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology – ‘The role of neuronal timescales in cognition’

Research Poster Prize

Winning Poster: Shana Silverstein, Observational fear learning: a behaviorally translational approach from mouse to man

Runner up: Ryan Wee, Hippocampal circuits for the state-dependent control of feeding behaviour

2018 Neuroscience Symposium

The UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2018 took place on Friday 22 June. Over 800 attendees from UCL and beyond enjoyed a day of fascinating talks and plenty of opportunity to network with colleagues and build new collaborations.

The abstract booklet for the UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2018 is now available to download: View Poster Abstract Booklet (pdf)

There were two very popular poster sessions which featured 10 lab posters and 119 research posters across 8 themes:

• Cognition and Behaviour

• Developmental Neuroscience

• Disorders of the Nervous System

• Homeostatic and Neuroendocrine Systems

• Neural Excitability, Synapses and Glia Posters

• Novel Methods, Resources and Technology

• Other Posters e.g. History of Neuroscience

• Sensory and Motor Systems Posters

Speakers

The 2018 keynote addresses were delivered by Professor Daniel Wolpert, Columbia University, New York and Dr Matt Botvinick, DeepMind.

We also had talks from six UCL speakers:
•    Professor Sarah Tabrizi - Antisense oligonucleotide therapy for Huntington's disease - results from the first HTT lowering clinical trial
•    Professor Chris Brewin - Understanding memory impairment in PTSD: Coherence, disorganisation, and fragmentation
•    Professor Tim Behrens - Building models of the world for controlling behaviour
•    Professor Mairead Macsweeney - Insights from deafness and sign language
•    Dr Andrew MacAskill - Cellular diversity in the ventral hippocampus
•    Dr Arantza Barrios - Neural circuits underlying sex differences in behaviour

Early Career Neuroscience Prize

The 2018 Early Career Neuroscience prize was won by Anna Krasnow (Junior Category), and Dr Rebecca Lawson (Advanced Category). The prize aims to recognise outstanding work published in the past year by early career UCL neuroscientists in any field of neuroscience, and is awarded in two categories; junior scientist (PhD students or post-docs with up to 3 years post-doc experience) and advanced scientist (from 4 and up to 10 years post-doc experience). Winner received a cash prize and had the chance to present a talk on their winning paper at the Symposium.

Junior Category

Anna Krasnow, UCL Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology
Winning Paper - Regulation of developing myelin sheath elongation by oligodendrocyte calcium transients in vivo. Nature Neuroscience, 2018 Jan;21(1):24-28. Krasnow AM, Ford MC, Valdivia LE, Wilson SW, Atwell D

Advanced Category

Dr Rebecca Lawson, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL
Winning Paper - Adults with autism overestimate the volatility of the sensory environment. Nature Neuroscience, 2017 Sept; 20(9): 1293-1299. Lawson RP, Mathys C and Rees G

Jon Driver Prize

Two winners were awarded the Jon Driver prize and each gave 5 minute talks:

Andrea Banino - Neuroscience and AI: modelling the brain using deep neural networks

Ruben Duque do Vale - Spatial navigation during escape behaviours in mice

Research Poster Prize

Winning Poster: Mr Philip Coen, Audiovisual spatial localization in head-fixed mice

Runner up: Mr Nathaniel Hafford Tear, Antisense therapy for a common corneal dystrophy ameliorates TCF4 repeat expansion-mediated toxicity

Blog

A blog about the Symposium by Oriol Pavon is available to read here:

http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/events/2018/08/15/the-2018-ucl-neuroscience-symposium/

2017 Neuroscience Symposium

The UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2017 took place on Friday 16 June and was a great success. Over 800 attendees from UCL and beyond enjoyed a day of fascinating talks and plenty of opportunity to network with colleagues and build new collaborations.

There were two very popular poster sessions which featured 12 lab posters and 145 research posters across 8 themes:

• Cognition and Behaviour

• Developmental Neuroscience

• Disorders of the Nervous System

• Homeostatic and Neuroendocrine Systems

• Neural Excitability, Synapses and Glia Posters

• Novel Methods, Resources and Technology

• Other Posters e.g. History of Neuroscience

• Sensory and Motor Systems Posters

Speakers

The 2017 keynote addresses were delivered by Professor Richard Morris, University of Edinburgh and Professor Barbara Sahakian, University of Cambridge.

We also had talks from six UCL speakers:

Dr Jennifer Bizley - How does seeing improve listening?

Professor Jernej Ule - The surprising RNA biology of neurons: recursive splicing and beyond

Dr Tamar Makin - Brain plasticity in amputees

Dr Isaac Bianco - Vision to action: Sensorimotor processing in larval zebrafish

Professor Christiana Ruhrberg - Cross-talk of neural progenitors and blood vessels in the developing brain

Dr Sergi Costafreda Gonzalez - Hearing loss and risk of dementia

Early Career Neuroscience Prize

The 2016 Early Career Neuroscience prize was won by Dr Karin Tuschl (Junior Category), and Dr Aude Marzo (Advanced Category). The prize aims to recognise outstanding work published in the past year by early career UCL neuroscientists in any field of neuroscience, and is awarded in two categories; junior scientist (PhD students or post-docs with up to 3 years post-doc experience) and advanced scientist (from 4 and up to 10 years post-doc experience). Winner received a cash prize and had the chance to present a talk on their winning paper at the Symposium.

Junior Category

Dr Karin Tuschl, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health & UCL Department of Cell and Developmental Biology Winning Paper - Mutations in SLC39A14 disrupt manganese homeostasis and cause childhood-onset parkinsonism-dystonia. Nature Communications, 2016 May 27;7:11601. Tuschl K, Meyer E, …… Kurian MA, Wilson SW

Advanced Category

Dr Aude Marzo, UCL Department of Cell and Developmental Biology Winning Paper - Reversal of synapse degeneration by restoring Wnt signalling in the adult hippocampus. Current Biology, 2016 Oct 10;26(19):2551-2561 . Marzo A, Galli S, Lopes D, McLeod F, Podpolny M, Segovia-Roldan M, Ciani L, Purro S, Cacucci F, Gibb A, Salinas PC

Laboratory Poster prize

Winning Poster Professor Rachael Pearson - UCL Institute of Ophthalmology Poster title: Cell based therapies for retinal repair Runner up Professor Sara Mole - MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology Poster title: Batten disease

Links

A write-up of the event is available on the UCL events blog website

The abstract booklet for the UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2017 is now available to download: View Poster Abstract Booklet (pdf)

2016 Neuroscience Symposium

The UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2016 took place on Friday 24th June and was a great success. Over 800 attendees from UCL and beyond enjoyed a day of fascinating talks and plenty of opportunity to network with colleagues and build new collaborations.

There were two very popular poster sessions which featured 22 lab posters and 149 research posters across 8 themes:

• Cognition and Behaviour

• Developmental Neuroscience

• Disorders of the Nervous System

• Homeostatic and Neuroendocrine Systems

• Neural Excitability, Synapses and Glia Posters

• Novel Methods, Resources and Technology

• Other Posters e.g. History of Neuroscience

• Sensory and Motor Systems Posters

Speakers

The 2016 keynote addresses were delivered by Professor Leslite Vosshall of the Rockefeller University, USA, and Dr Rick Livesey of The Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge.

We also had talks from six UCL speakers:

Professor Maneesh Sahani - Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit; Making sense of neural populations
Dr Suzanne Reeves - UCL Division of Psychiatry; Is there a therapeutic window of antipsychotic prescribing in Alzheimer's disease?
Professor Alison Lloyd - MRC/UCL Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology; The cellular complexity of peripheral nerve regeneration
Professor Jonathan Roiser - UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience; Is depression caused by a hyperactive habenula?
Dr Sam Solomon - UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences; Freeze or flight: vision guides choice of defence strategies in mice
Professor Gillian Bates - UCL Institute of Neurology; Insights into the molecular basis of Huntington's Disease

Early Career Neuroscience Prize

The 2016 Early Career Neuroscience prize was won by Maria Maiarù (Junior Category), and Dr Nicola Hamilton-Whitaker (Advanced Category).

The prize aims to recognise outstanding work published in the past year by early career UCL neuroscientists in any field of neuroscience, and is awarded in two categories; junior scientist (PhD students or post-docs with up to 3 years post-doc experience) and advanced scientist (from 4 and up to 10 years post-doc experience). Winner received a cash prize and had the chance to present a talk on their winning paper at the Symposium.

Junior Category

Maria Maiarù, UCL Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

Winning Paper - The stress regulator FKBP51 drives chronic pain by modulating spinal glucocorticoid signalling. Maiarù M, Tochiki KK, Annan LV, Bell CG, Feng X, Hausch F, Geranton SM. Science Translational Medicine. 2016, 8, 325: pp.325ra19.

Advanced Category

Dr Nicola Hamilton Whitaker, UCL Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology

Winning Paper - Proton-gated Ca2+-permeable TRP channels damage myelin in conditions mimicking ischaemia. Hamilton NB, Kolodziejczy K, Kougioumtzidou E, Attwell D. Nature. January 2016. 529, 523-527

Laboratory Poster prize

Winning Poster

Joerg Albert - UCL Ear Institute

Poster title: Drosophila mechanosensory systems as a universal tool for sensory biology

Runner up

Alex Leff - UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

Poster title: Developing digital neuro-interventions and understanding how they interact with surviving language networks

Links
A write-up of the event is available here:
Neuroscience Symposium blog (pdf)

The abstract booklet for the UCL Neuroscience Symposium 2016 is now available to download:

Abstract booklet (pdf)