The most important skill a scientist needs, after the research and technical skills needed to execute a study, is the ability to report their scientific endeavours in the written form. Indeed, there is no point in conducting research if one cannot articulate new scientific knowledge. The aim of this workshop, which will be presented by the editors of four international, society-owned neuroscience journals, to discuss what happens to a paper once the ‘submit’ button is pressed. We will discuss what editors consider when deciding whether to review a paper, what we expect from reviewers, what we expect in a good paper, how journals expect data to be represented and statistical analyses reported and issues around journal metrics. Each of the editors will be attending the FENS forum and will be available for discussion about current papers, prospective papers and special issues. Additional aims are: • to stress the importance of Society-owned journals, • to show that we as editors are approachable and want to publish good science • to show that we are scientists ourselves who have gone through the submission process many times and • to dispel the idea of conflict between the author and Editors/reviewers

"Today I wouldn't get an academic job. It's as simple as that. I don't think I would be regarded as productive enough." Peter Higgs, Nobel prize winner. The preference for dramatic, novel and positive findings over incremental, reproduced or negative findings within a ‘publish or perish’ culture is jeopardising the reproducibility, replicability, and reliability of neuroscience research. While this issue has been recognised for some time, and is currently being addressed by many research councils, institutes and journals who are adopting credible initiatives, there is still a perceived - or in many cases actual - pressure on neuroscientists to publish ‘high-impact’ articles (and in high numbers). In this special event, we will hear about credibility initiatives that have the potential to increase the reproducibility, replicability, and reliability neuroscience research, which will not only benefit scientific progress in the long-run, but also address a major cause for the poor mental health of research scientists. Following this event, the speakers will be available to answer your questions in an informal setting within the Forum career and training area from 14:30-15:30.

The principles of replacement, refinement and reduction - the “Three Rs” put forward by the European Directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes - continue to shape scientific research across the EU and beyond. In this context, the search for alternatives to animal models increasingly influences the development of research projects. At the same time, the importance of employing the correct model - be that animal or otherwise - remains key to the reliability, and indeed utility, of any results. The discussion will cover situations involving a shift from high to low complexity models, from animal models to experiments in humans, and animal to in vitro models. Speakers who have made such changes will discuss their reasons for doing so, the challenges encountered and the impact on their working methods.

After a short introduction by Prof. Carmen Sandi - FENS President and Chair of the ALBA Network, the two panel co-chairs will invite panelists to define their key principles for a good negotiation and share their own experience on negotiation and how it served them in their career. This will be followed by a live Q&A where the audience will ask questions to the panelists through a chat system. More information: http://www.alba.network/panel-fensforum2020

Epigenetics refer to dynamic biological mechanisms that control gene expression and cellular function, without the influence of genomic DNA sequence. Epigenetic mechanisms are vast in nature and include modification of DNA and histones, regulatory RNAs, and chromatin structure. In this-symposium, two well-studied epigenetic mechanisms i.e. the role of chromatin remodelling and DNA methylation will be discussed. These regulatory processes are highly conserved during evolution and play critical roles in central nervous system development. Accordingly, genetic mutation of epigenetic factors or deregulation of these processes leads to human disease and neurodevelopmental disorders. The main objective of this symposium is to provide an up-to-date understanding of molecular epigenetics and mechanism of disease in neurodevelopmental disorders. Four selected speakers are Dr. Nathalie Berube (Western University), Prof. David Picketts (University of Ottawa), Prof. Albert Basson (King’s College London), and Dr. Mojgan Rastegar (University of Manitoba). These speakers are experts in the field with established research programs on epigenetics. They will discuss and present their recent findings on the role of chromatin remodelling and DNA methylation in neurodevelopmental disorders. These discussions are expected to provide important insight towards the translation of basic science research into the therapeutic strategies of human neurodevelopmental disorders.

The ability to update memories in changing environments is critical for evolutionary fitness. Memories frequently return to a state in which they are destabilised and require synaptic plasticity to be 'reconsolidated' in an updated form. This process could provide a therapeutic opportunity for mental health disorders, such as drug addiction, in which maladaptive memories contribute to the long-term risk of relapse. Thus, understanding the mechanisms of memory destabilisation is important from basic and translational perspectives. This symposium will bring together experts researching memory destabilisation across species, at multiple levels of analysis. Amy Milton (UK), who first demonstrated dissociations in memory retrieval, destabilisation and restabilisation and their dependence on NMDA receptors, will chair. She will also discuss whether 'extinction within the reconsolidation window' engages memory updating mechanisms. Jonathan Ploski (US) will discuss how specific genetic manipulations in NMDA receptor subtype expression and trafficking enhances memory malleability. Johannes Felsenberg (CH) will present circuit-level analyses of memory updating in Drosophila, and discuss the switch between memory updating and new memory formation. Finally, Maria Pedreira (AR) will consider the relationship between memory updating and prediction error, from crabs to humans. This symposium will interest a wide audience, from those working on synaptic plasticity to clinician researchers.

Grid cells are defined by the periodic arrangement of their firing fields during exploration of open-field environments. This periodic activity is thought to provide a coordinate system to map our surrounding environment. In recent years, significant advancement has been made towards understanding 1) the network mechanisms generating grid cell firing and 2) the factors affecting grid cell periodicity. This symposium will report on these two key aspects. Laura Colgin will show that during sleep, when sensory inputs are absent, grid cells preserve their firing associations. This work demonstrates that local network interactions rather than sensory inputs determine grid cell co-activity. Gilly Ginosar will present grid cell recordings from bats flying in 3D environments. She will argue that, in 3D, grid cell fields are not organized as a global lattice despite maintaining a short-range organization. Charlotte Boccara will demonstrate that learning new goal locations leads many grid fields to move towards those goals, causing long-lasting distortions of the grid map. Finally, Stefan Leutgeb will stress the importance of local network processing for grid cell accuracy and show that grid cells can encode non-spatial information. Together, these studies present network interactions as critical determinants of grid cell functions and suggest that deviations from periodic firing are integral to grid cell coding.

The barrel cortex has emerged as a key model system in neuroscience for studying cortical structure and function. The barrel cortex was discovered in 1970 in a seminal paper by Woolsey and Van der Loos. Next year (2020), it will be the 50-year anniversary of this discovery, and we would like to help celebrate this by organising a barrel cortex symposium at FENS2020 in Glasgow. The anatomical organisation of barrel cortex allows neuroscientists to investigate the structure, function and plasticity of neuronal circuits in the context of a well-defined sensory map. This unique feature of the barrel cortex has allowed spectacular progress to be made over the last decades in the quantitative understanding of the structure and function of cortical circuits, and this will be the subject of this symposium. The four speakers will cover distinct aspects of barrel cortex structure and function: 1. Isabelle Ferezou (Paris, France) will discuss the large-scale functional organization of whisker-representations in dorsal cortex imaged using voltage-sensitive dyes. 2. Christiaan de Kock (Amsterdam, Netherlands) will discuss different functional properties and patterns of activity in morphologically-identified neurons in barrel cortex. 3. Randy Bruno (New York, USA) will discuss layer-specific function of neurons in barrel cortex. 4. Jean-Sebastien Jouhanneau (Berlin, Germany) will discuss synaptic transmission between individual neurons measured in vivo in barrel cortex.