The European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS), European Behavioural Pharmacology Society (EBPS), European Molecular and Cellular Cognition Society (EMCCS) and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS) invite you to our jointly organised mini-conference. A variety of topics will be covered, focussing on the role of behaviour in Neuroscience and the translatability of animal models to human traits and psychiatric disorders. There will be four themed sessions with talks from rising stars in our field, followed by a round table discussion. Our mini-conference is a rare event bringing together our four societies, established leaders and early career researchers from the behavioural neuroscience community for a day of amazing science and networking opportunities. Supported by the FENS Forum, our mini-conference will take place directly before the opening of the biannual meeting in Glasgow so that participants can use this event as a taster for the FENS FORUM meeting and continue to discuss this important topic during the meeting. Attendance to the mini-conferences requires additional registration. For more information and to register visit https://forum2020.fens.org/mini-conferences/

Cognitive impairment and intellectual disability affect a large population of children suffering from neurodevelopmental diseases as well as the elderly population succumbing to age- associated cognitive impairments. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of these disorders will aid in better diagnosis and improved treatments. The mini-conference will feature some leading genes causing autism/intellectual disability syndromes, like ADNP and CHD8, as well as electrophysiology and molecular mechanisms of intellectual disability. The role of environmental factors as well as basic mechanisms of synaptic transmission and neuro-glial interactions will also be elucidated. Finally, innovative drug development will be discussed toward better cognitive functioning both in children and elderly. A collaborative effort between the European Society for Neurochemistry (ESN) and the UK based Simon Initiative for the developing brain will underpin this event.

The mini conference will explore multiple levels of structural and functional organization, across multi-scale networks in human, monkey and rodent brains. Speakers will range in expertise from neuronal and subneuronal microcircuitry, up to macroscale regional organization relevant for system-level approaches to understanding brain processes. The aim is to provide participants with state of the art neuroscience methodologies and theories, taking a multidisciplinary approach to data that bridges the gap between different levels of brain organization, including neuronal data, high-field (7T) human brain imaging and behavioural measures, and computational modelling. Speakers will describe their contribution to overarching goals of multi-scale, multi-method neuroscience, from advancing knowledge of human cognition to disorder-related alterations. Attendance to the mini conferences requires additional registration. For more information and to register visit https://forum2020.fens.org/mini-conferences/

The European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) is committed to ensuring that advances in the understanding of brain function and behaviour are translated into better treatments for brain disorders and enhanced public health. To achieve these goals, ECNP supports innovative research in neuroscience applied disciplines and facilitate the communication of ideas, discoveries and best practices. In addition, ECNP promotes the entry of early career scientists into the field and support their ongoing professional development, provides guidance and information to the public, and facilitate dialogue with regulators, government bodies, international agencies and industry. In this symposium, four leading experts in neuroscience applied research will outline their research and the field that ECNP is representing and highlight examples how basic neuroscience findings could be translated to clinical application. Attendance to the mini-conferences requires additional registration. For more information and to register visit https://forum2020.fens.org/mini-conferences/

The importance of sleep for the development and memory and the impact of sleep quality on daytime functioning in infants and children will be covered discussed and up-to-date research will be presented. The conference will also focus on cognitive neuroscience, new sleep circuitries and memory function in adults, before concluding on the importance of sleep and aging, neurodegeneration and sleep-wake regulation in disease. The content will be brought to you by a multi-disciplinary faculty of basic scientists and clinicians. The mini-conference is organised by the British Sleep Society (BSS) in collaboration with the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS). Attendance to the mini conferences requires additional registration. For more information and to register visit https://forum2020.fens.org/mini-conferences/

The Cajal Club is delighted to announce this mini-conference entitled “A Celebration of Women in Developmental Neuroscience” as part of the 12th FENS Forum of Neuroscience in Glasgow on the 11th July 2020. The mini-conference is inspired by three themes: First, Cajal Club-sponsored meetings at other venues traditionally focus on the cerebral cortex. Here we will highlight advances in the several other model systems Cajal studied, with a focus on development. Second, we aim to celebrate women in science by showcasing women scientists especially in Europe who work on these systems. Third, we will have the opportunity to hear about the women neuroscientists in the Cajal school through a talk by Fernando de Castro, who has recently authored an article on this theme. For further information and to register, please visit http://cajalclub.org. Attendance to the mini conferences requires additional registration. For more information and to register visit https://forum2020.fens.org/mini-conferences/

During adolescence the brain regions such as prefrontal cortex necessary for cognitive and executive function, working memory, motivated behaviour and emotional regulation are being reorganized. Cholinergic system and cholinergic nicotinic receptors are important role players in this maturation process of brain from adolescence to adulthood. The disruption of the function of the cholinergic system during this maturation process with external nicotine, via tobacco or e-cigarettes, has long-lasting consequences on this development, as adolescent brain is quite sensitive to nicotine. The effects of nicotine in adolescent brain differ from those of adult brain. Also, adolescent nicotine exposure may induce epigenetic changes that sensitize the brain to other drugs of abuse via altering the response of dopaminergic system. Attendance to the mini conferences requires additional registration. For more information and to register visit https://forum2020.fens.org/mini-conferences/

Optogenetics is a highly active and interdisciplinary field of research with major relevance to the broad neuroscience community. Optogenetics enables cell-type- and brain area-specific, spatially confined and graded stimulation and inhibition of neurons. Optogenetics ranges from tool making to applications in clinical neurosciences. Insight into new optogenetic tools: tailored opsins and vectors (Boyden, Dalkara, Gradinaru, Moser) and light delivery approaches: structured illumination by spatial light modulators and implantable micro-LED arrays (Emiliani, Moser). Understanding neural circuitry using optogenetic manipulation (Boyden, Gradinaru, Emiliani). Restoring the function of neural circuitry by optogenetic stimulation (Boyden, Gradinaru, Dalkara, Moser). Selection of speakers covers leading experts with balanced representation of gender (50% female), age, and European nations, two transatlantic speakers

The workshop will highlight the measurement capabilities of key technologies for large-scale monitoring of neural activity, in particular fully integrated Neuropixels silicon probes and wide-field 2-photon imaging. We have selected leading experts in the field as speakers to share recent data and protocols related to all technical aspects; from building setups, to data processing (spike sorting and image processing), storage and analysis. The workshop also aims at stimulating discussions about major challenges, in particular the analysis of large datasets and the scientific interpretation of brain-wide signals in the context of behavior. Finally, we will discuss current technical limitations and possible improvements in next generation technologies. The purpose of the workshop is to bring together the rapidly growing user community and to establish best-practices in order to ensure data quality is maintained at the larger scale of measurement. The workshop further aims at facilitating the adoption of new technologies by lowering the threshold to become first-time users. Taken together, it will advance the technical capabilities of the circuit neuroscience community and it will foster scientific exchange related to a major question in neuroscience – how the coordinated neural activity across brain regions gives rise to mental function and behavior.

The past 4 decades highlighted the importance of glia, shifting the neurocentric vision of structure, function and pathology of nervous system to a more holistic perspective. In this view, the demand of technologies targeting the selective monitoring and control of glia is emerging as a challenge across Neuroscience, Engineering and Material Science. This workshop aims to present the most promising advances in unconventional tools & methods, that enabled to reach unprecedented insights into the 4 dimensional (4D) nature of spatio-temporal neuron-glial interactions, in the healthy and pathological brain. Specifically, we will show how 1)(bio)materials as silicon nanowire, graphene or hydrogels can provide transition from 2D to 3D models, mimicking in-vivo structure, where to study healthy or reactive glial cells in vitro 2)the use of nanostructured device allows stimulation and recording of astrocytes and neurons at different spatiotemporal scale 3)computational approaches and control theory can reverse-engineer neuron-glial interactions 4)combination of opto/chemogenetics, CLARITY and two-photon imaging reveals clues on significance of astrocytic domains in memory consolidation 5)photonic and spectroscopic methods uncover the signature of microglial cells in pain. The forum, presented by scientists from 5 different countries, will provide a multidisciplinary perspective on tools, potentially enabling to extend our knowledge on cognitive functions, pain and Alzheimer diseases

People who plan electron microscopy connectomics tend to underestimate the sheer amount of work required after serial section images are obtained. Here technical challenges and solutions for the fly connectome projects with transmission and focused ion beam scanning EM will be reported and shared with the people working on diverse organisms. Timing is ideal, because a series of FIB-SEM connectome papers will be published just before the Forum. To promote communication we provide ten minute discussion for each talk. S. Plaza established a computational platform for analyzing EM section images and visualizing/annotating the traced data. M. Januszewski developed the first automated neuron segmentation algorithm that works with reliable precision, which was a breakthrough for FIB-SEM analysis. A. Cardona established a platform for cooperative manual segmentation/annotation and organized a large collaborative project. R. Parekh trained and coordinated a team of tens of technicians who segment, proofread, and annotate data of both TEM and FIB-SEM with high throughput. H. Otsuna developed systems for finding homologous neurons between EM and light microscopy images, making it possible to switch EM and LM analyses freely. (The proposal might conflict with the FENS policy in that 3 speakers come from a single institute. It is inevitable given that all the large-scale fly EM connectomics are done at Janelia. We appreciate your flexible evaluation in this regard for this rare occasion.)