Organised by the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence (FKNE) under the umbrella of the FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training (CHET), the event will focus on topics relevant for senior postdocs, newly appointed and mid-carrier PIs. The approached themes include: how to get the first PI position, selection of team members, application and management of funds, the mid-carrier gap, early and mid-career mobility, and coping with stress while balancing life with career. The overall aim of the event is to bring together the attendees with current mid-carrier FKNE and FKNE alumni PIs to share concrete experiences and problem-solving skills, and start to create a network among the future generation of PIs.

This event is convened by the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence. This workshop will communicate insights and experience on advocacy activities for neuroscience policy and funding in Europe. The goal of the workshop is to inform neuroscience researchers about strategies, mechanisms, and challenges of science advocacy in Europe; and to encourage individuals to find effective ways of engaging on policy issues. Speakers will include active neuroscientists with significant experience in science advocacy, as well as policy professionals who work on a daily basis in implementing neuroscience funding and organization. The event will include a panel discussion where audience engagement is highly encouraged.

Monica Di Luca (Chair of European Brain Council)

Camilla Bellone (Policy and Advocacy Committee, Society for Neuroscience)

Karim Berkouk (DG Research & Innovation at European Commission)

Mark Ferguson (European Innovation Council & Science Foundation Ireland)

Nicolas Voilley (European Research Council)

When Brian Daniels, the author of the play attended the 50th birthday party of his friends Irene Heron and Rachael Dixey, in 1997, he remembers it as a joyful and exuberant event. Nobody then could have guessed that ten years later the vivacious and theatrical Irene would be developing early onset dementia and fifteen years later she would have lost her functioning powers, be in a care home and she would die aged 66 in 2013. Her partner of 25 years, Professor Rachael Dixey wrote in her journal every day about the challenges of living with a partner who had dementia. She asked Brian to read the journal and he was then inspired by write a play about family life and early onset dementia. Irene was cared for in a nursing home in Yorkshire. In the same nursing home was Chris Toulman. Chris and his wife Cindy had been married for over 40 years and were a devoted couple. Chris had never had a good memory but warning bells started to sound when he started getting into a muddle when doing the accounts of his garage business. He would sometimes do the MOT twice on a car, forgetting he had already done the work. Eventually he was diagnosed with dementia and in time went into full time care. His wife visited him every day, and all day, talking to him, feeding him and loving him. Chris died in his early 60s. With the support of both families Brian embarked on writing these very personal stories. He wanted to explore through a play the way in which dementia impacts on the wider family and whether love ever becomes a duty. The first ‘shared’ performances of the play were at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds and the play has gone on to have to date (November 2017) more than 150 performances throughout the UK and Northern Ireland. The play has also been filmed by Birmingham NHS Trust to help educate around the complexities of the Mental Capacity Act.

The emergence of a number of international collaboratives generating vast amounts of brain big data have generated a demand for data sharing that will require an unprecedented level of cooperation to openly share not only our data, but also our tools for making data FAIR, and analyzable. The significant obstacles posed by different data sharing restrictions due to different privacy regulations (like GDPR), differences in the platform usability due to the needs of original stakeholders, or different national ethical restrictions on data acquisition and use, create a confounding landscape for us to navigate. This event is designed to inform the community of the brain data-driven efforts in the international arena, and open the discussion as to how we can combine our resources to achieve greater international cooperation in openly sharing data, AI and best practices - to enable us all to move forward synergistically

Supported by: EDAB - Lecture on Neuroethics

The pre- and postnatal subventricular zone (SVZ) contains a large reservoir of neural stem cells (NSC). However, the extent, mechanisms and function of SVZ neurogenesis are not fully understood. We aim to present new results regarding important modulatory mechanisms of SVZ neurogenesis. In addition, we will present new migration routes for neuroblasts from the postnatal SVZ both in rodents and humans. Dr. Götz will focus on the centrosome protein Akna that modulates NSC delamination, lineage progression, and adult neurogenesis (Camargo et al., Nature 2019) and the nuclear protein Trnp1 that influences brain folding (Stahl et al., Cell 2013). Dr. Alfonso will show that nascent periventricular vessels in the ventral telenchephalon communicate with actively dividing NSC via endothelial filopodia, modulating the apical progenitor cell cycle dynamics and progeny output. Dr. Paredes will extend pioneering work on intra-cortical migration from the SVZ during human infancy (Paredes et al., Science, 2016), presenting new data on the contribution of the caudal ganglionic eminence (CGE) to the population of interneurons that continue to migrate in the early postnatal human cortex. Dr. Inta will talk about the translational relevance of the widespread neuronal migration from the postnatal SVZ into cortex and striatum in mice (Inta et al., PNAS, 2008), focusing on the potential role in schizophrenia and the effect of psychiatric treatments.

Hearing is central for communication, but we still understand poorly how sounds are processed to allow us to make sense of them in greatly diverse sensory environments. Beyond deciphering the neural activity patterns produced by sounds, a major challenge is to establish causal links between these patterns and perception. This symposium will present new research dissecting auditory neuronal circuits and corresponding sensory features that are crucial for perception and adaptive behavior.

This symposium aims to present the new frontiers of genetic tools in rodents and primates, specifically, we will introduce: 1. The development of novel genetically encoded sensors for rapid, sensitive, specific detection of diverse neuromodulators, including neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, in rodents and primates brain during behavior. 2.The use of single cell profiling technologies (single cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq) to define cell types in mouse brain and design cell-type specific genetic tools. 3. The application of the CRISPR/Cas9 system to create genetically modified (GM) non-human primates (e.g. disease models, and genetic tools, including optogenetic effector and, neuron-specific Cre transgenic monkeys). 4. The application of optogenetics to study neuron-glia networks in the brain.This symposium aims to present the new frontiers of genetic tools in rodents and primates, specifically, we will introduce: 1.The development of novel genetically encoded sensors for rapid, sensitive, specific detection of diverse neuromodulators, including neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, in rodents and primates brain during behavior. 2.The use of single cell profiling technologies (single cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq) to define cell types in mouse brain and design cell-type specific genetic tools. 3.The application of the CRISPR/Cas9 system to create genetically modified (GM) non-human primates (e.g. disease models, and genetic tools, including optogenetic effector and, neuron-specific Cre transgenic monkeys). 4.The application of optogenetics to study neuron-glia networks in the brain.

There is growing appreciation that synaptic resolution connectomics can make significant contributions to neuroscience, but this is not yet universally accepted. One reason is that comprehensive, dense connectomics revealing all of the connections within a brain are the most informative for neural circuits; but to date there are only two whole brain connectomes, C. elegans (302 neurons) and the Ciona tadpole (177 neurons). By early 2020, international collaborative efforts will complete the connectome of the Drosophila larval brain (2500 neurons) and large scale circuit reconstruction from adult fly (~25000 neurons in a brain hemisphere). These brains are numerically much more complex, supporting sophisticated behaviours. This symposium will be the first to present, side by side, insights from these complete larval and adult connectomes. Experimental and computational neuroscientists leading these efforts will show how EM connectomics can deepen our understanding of sensory integration, learning and memory, action selection and navigation. These results emphasise that connectomics is not just an hypothesis generator but can produce fundamental insights into the computational architecture of the brain. We will introduce to the broad FENS audience the revolution that synaptic resolution connectomics is producing in fly circuits and behaviour. We strongly believe that these approaches will have a similar impact on vertebrate neuroscience in the near future.