Highlights of Our Past Conferences
Testimonials from Our Past Conferences
Dr. Osama Ouda
Seha Kidney Care, UAEOverall the conference has a huge impact on our lives as a specialist in health professionals. It's my First time I am participating to the conference that the information which they brought is just amazing from all the fields, up to date and with a great impact regarding the treatments and possibilities from all the places of the world.
Dr. Gerald C.Hsu
Eclaire MD Foundation, USAThe Health Frontiers was a great success! I had the opportunity to connect with so many brilliant minds in the field. The networking events were invaluable, and I made some truly valuable connections. Looking forward to future conferences.
Annunziata Mauro
University of Teramo, ItalySpeaking at the Conference has been an incredible experience. The platform not only allowed me to share my research but also to connect with other leading scientists. The quality of discussions and the diversity of perspectives were outstanding.
Kunal Joon
Nodia International neutrally of medical sciences, NodiaMy experience with sciconx conference. I really love the conference .The conference manager was cooperative and presented my presentation successfully and also listened others presentation carefully and gained knowledge for my future research. It was the very knowledgeable experience.
Barbara Barboni
University of Teramo, ItalyThis conference brought together a unique blend of academics, clinicians, and industry experts. Presenting my work here led to invaluable feedback and collaborations that have significantly advanced my research.
Afifa YEDJOUR
University of Science and Technology of Oran, AlgeriaThis conference was a fantastic platform to discuss the impact of nano science on real-world applications. Presenting my research on nano sensors and receiving constructive feedback from experts was an enriching experience. The diversity of topics covered ensured there was something for everyone.
Valentina Russo
University of Teramo, ItalyAs a speaker, I appreciated the high level of organization and the engaged audience. The conference provided a perfect platform to discuss cutting-edge developments and foster partnerships. I left inspired and full of new ideas.
Welcome Message
We’re excited to welcome you to an extraordinary event dedicated to the latest advancements, pioneering research, and forward-thinking innovations in neuroscience, was slated on October 09-10, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan. Whether you're a seasoned researcher, a practicing clinician, or simply passionate about the brain, this conference offers a unique platform to connect with leading experts, share knowledge, and explore the complexities of the nervous system.
This conference serves as a platform for exchanging groundbreaking ideas, sharing the latest research, and fostering collaborations that drive innovation in neuroscience. Through insightful keynote lectures, interactive discussions, and cutting-edge presentations, we aim to explore the complexities of brain function, neurological disorders, and emerging technologies shaping the future of neuroscience. Your participation and contributions are invaluable in pushing the boundaries of knowledge and translating scientific discoveries into real-world applications. We encourage you to engage actively, network with experts, and make the most of this opportunity to learn and inspire.
About Neuroscience 2025
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Who should Attend?
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- Those seeking to enhance their skills, stay updated on industry trends, or learn about innovative practices.
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- Passionate individuals curious about the conference theme or industry.
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- Essentially, anyone seeking to grow their knowledge, network, or influence within the event's field of focus would benefit from attending.
Why to Attend?
Attending a conference is an investment in yourself and your career, offering a mix of education, networking, and inspiration.
Attending a conference offers a wide range of benefits, including:
- Best platform for Global business and Networking opportunities.
- B2B Meetings.
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- Meet industry peers, thought leaders and potential collaborators.
- Build valuable relationships that can lead to partnerships, mentorship or career opportunities.
- Learning and Professional Development.
- Gain insights into the latest trends, research, and technologies in your field.
- Attend workshops, panel discussions and keynote sessions led by experts.
- Idea Generation and Innovation.
- Expose yourself to new perspectives that can inspire creative solutions to challenges.
- Discover fresh ideas that can drive personal and organizational growth.
- Career Advancement.
- Showcase your expertise through participation or presentations. Enhance your credentials and visibility within your professional community.
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- Explore new tools, services and products showcased by vendors and sponsors.
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Motivation and Inspiration
- Reignite your passion for your work by connecting with like-minded professionals.
- Return to work energized with actionable insights and a renewed sense of purpose.
- The Career Guidance Workshops to the Graduates, Doctorates and Post-Doctoral Fellows.
Why to Register?
Registering for a conference is essential to gain access to the unique opportunities and secure a chance to grow, connect and gain insights that can drive your personal and professional success.
- Access to networking sessions and coffee breaks.
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- Discounts on accommodations for attendees.
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- Chance to win giveaways, prizes, or promotional items from exhibitors or sponsors.
- Priority registration for next year's conference at discounted rates.
- Invitation to exclusive breakout or roundtable discussions.
- Participation certificate.
- Accepted abstracts has been published as proceedings with DOI.
Latest News
How brain connectivity and machine learning enhance understanding of human cognition
2024-12-16 - 2024-12
A recent study explores the relationship between brain connectivity and intelligence, highlighting the value of interpretability in predictive modeling for deeper insights into human cognition.
Machine learning in neuroscience
Neuroscientific research on human cognition has evolved from focusing on single-variable explanatory studies to employing machine learning-based predictive modeling. This shift enables the analysis of relationships between behavior and multiple neurobiological variables to forecast behavior across diverse samples.
Intelligence, a key predictor of life outcomes such as health and academic achievement, has been extensively studied, with theories dividing it into fluid and crystallized components. Recent machine learning approaches have enhanced intelligence prediction using brain connectivity data. However, limited conceptual insights, reliance on specific intelligence measures, and methodological constraints highlight the need for further research to systematically explore predictive brain features.
The present study adhered to a rigorous methodology, with all analyses, sample sizes, and variables preregistered on the Open Science Framework. The primary analyses followed preregistered protocols, with additional post hoc analyses conducted to further explore brain connections most relevant for intelligence prediction.
Study participants were drawn from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) Young Adult Sample S1200, consisting of 1,200 individuals between 22 and 37 years of age. Informed consent was obtained in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and all procedures were approved by the Washington University Institutional Review Board.
After exclusions for missing data, cognitive impairment based on Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores of 26 and less, or excessive head motion, the final sample included 806 participants, 418 of whom were female and 733 right-handed. Measures of intelligence including general intelligence (gg), crystallized intelligence (gCgC), and fluid intelligence (gFgF) were estimated using bi-factor and exploratory factor analyses from cognitive test scores.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected during resting state and seven cognitive tasks to construct subject-specific functional connectivity (FC) matrices. Minimally pre-processed fMRI data underwent additional preprocessing steps, including nuisance regression, global signal correction, and removal of task-evoked activation, to improve connectivity estimates. Predictive modeling utilized feedforward neural networks, which incorporated five-fold cross-validation, hyperparameter optimization, and an out-of-sample deconfounding approach to control for covariates such as age, sex, and head motion.
Model interpretability was enhanced using layer-wise relevance propagation (LRP) to identify functional brain connections most critical for predictions. External replication was performed using two independent d
Neuroscience Says This Simple Habit Boosts Your Memory and Improves Cognitive Flexibility It’s promising advice for any busy business leader—and tasty, too.
2025-01-24 - 2025-01
What if we learned that making a small change to your diet could improve key aspects of cognitive performance? The best part is that it involves a popular habit that lots of people try to follow anyway, even if they don’t know about the brain benefits. Here are the key details:
Clinical Neuroscience Research Center, say it’s all about following the most popular diet trend of 2025: the much-lauded Mediterranean diet.
Writing in the scholarly journal Gut Microbes Reports, they say they simulated the way human bodies react to Western and Mediterranean diets by feeding modified versions of those diets to laboratory rats over 14 weeks.
Results: The rats that were fed the modified Mediterranean diet wound up with increases in four kinds of gut bacteria that are beneficial for cognitive function, and decreases in five other kinds of gut bacteria that are associated with reduced memory function.
Neurobehavioral assessments
In addition to the physical changes, they recorded the rats’ performance on a variety of neurobehavioral assessments, which is a fancy way of saying they tested how quickly they could figure out how to navigate various mazes, and how well they could remember the way out when they took the tests again.
“We’ve known that what we eat affects brain function, but this study explores how that could be happening,” said lead author Rebecca Solch-Ottaiano at Tulane’s Clinical Neuroscience Research Center. “Our findings suggest that dietary choices can influence cognitive performance by reshaping the gut microbiome.”
5 keys to the diet
Let’s make sure it’s clear what a Mediterranean diet actually entails—and how it compares to what researchers say is a typical Western diet.
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First, it’s one in which the primary fat source is olive oil, as opposed to higher saturated fats.
Second, it’s full of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits—perhaps four servings per day.
Third, the proteins are lean: fish, for example, as well as chicken, turkey, and eggs.
Fourth, related—there is very limited red meat intake.
Finally, lots of fiber from a variety of plant sources.
My tastes might not be the same as yours of course, but on a personal level that all sounds quite delicious.
Good advice and good business
The Mediterranean diet is also quite popular—among doctors and other health professionals advising patients, and among people aiming to lose weight and live healthier.
Each year, for example, U.S. News & World Report ranks the “best diets” for the New Year’s resolution crowd, based on criteria like nutritional completeness, health risks versus benefits, sustainability over the long term, and evidence-based effectiveness.
The Mediterranean diet has topped the list for eight years running.
You tell me: If you’re an entrepreneur who wants to meet people where they are in the health and wellness space, maybe focusing on the Mediterranean diet would be a worthy strategy?
Bonus point:
Dopamine Clock May Drive Bipolar Mood Swings
2025-01-27 - 2025-01
Summary: New research suggests that mood swings in bipolar disorder are regulated by two clocks: the body’s 24-hour circadian rhythm and a dopamine-based clock that influences alertness. When these clocks align at specific intervals, they may trigger shifts between mania and depression.
Researchers demonstrated this in mice by activating the dopamine clock, creating mood rhythms akin to bipolar cycling. The findings could lead to treatments targeting the dopamine-based clock to stabilize mood episodes by reducing their frequency and intensity.
Key Facts:
Dual Clocks: Bipolar mood swings are influenced by circadian and dopamine-based clocks.
Dopamine’s Role: A dopamine-driven rhythm regulates mood cycling, distinct from circadian rhythms.
Therapeutic Target: Silencing the dopamine clock may offer a new approach to bipolar treatments.
Source: McGill University
A brain rhythm working in tandem with the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle may explain why bipolar patients alternate between mania and depression, according to new research.
The McGill University-led study published in Science Advances marks a breakthrough in understanding what drives shifts between the two states, something that, according to lead author Kai-Florian Storch, is considered the “holy grail” of bipolar-disorder research.
“Our model offers the first universal mechanism for mood switching or cycling, which operates analogously to the sun and the moon driving spring tides at specific, recurring times,” said Storch, an Associate Professor in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry and a researcher at the Douglas Research Centre.
The findings suggest that regularly occurring mood switches in bipolar disorder patients are controlled by two “clocks”: the biological 24-hour clock, and a second clock that is driven by dopamine-producing neurons that typically influence alertness.
A manic or depressed state may arise depending on how these two clocks, which run at different speeds, align at a given time.
Notably, the authors say this second dopamine-based clock probably stays dormant in healthy people.
To carry out their study, the scientists activated the second clock in mice to create behavioral rhythms similar to the mood swinging in bipolar disorder. When they disrupted dopamine-producing neurons in the brain’s reward centre, these rhythms ceased, highlighting dopamine as a key factor in the mood swings of bipolar disorder.
Hope for new treatments: Silencing the clock
Current treatments for bipolar disorder focus on stabilizing moods but often don’t address the root causes of mood swings, the researchers said.
“Our discovery of a dopamine-based arousal rhythm generator provides a novel and distinct target for treatment, which should aim at correcting or silencing this clock to reduce the frequency and intensity of mood episodes,” said Storch.
What remains unknown is the exact molecular workings of the dopamine clock, as well as the genetic and environmental factors that may
How time and space interact in the brain
2025-01-28 - 2025-01
Have you ever tried to catch a baseball? In that split second, your brain is doing something remarkable – it’s tracking both where the ball is and how long it’ll take to reach you. This everyday feat of coordination reveals an extraordinary truth about our brains: they’re constantly processing time and space simultaneously.
Scientists have long wondered exactly how our brains juggle these two fundamental aspects of reality. Now, researchers from SISSA‘s Cognitive Neuroscience group have cracked open this mystery.
In their study, Valeria Centanino, Gianfranco Fortunato, and Domenica Bueti revealed an elegant system at work in our brains.
The findings show that different brain regions process time and space in unique ways – much like a company where some departments handle multiple tasks together, while others specialize in just one thing.
How time and space interact in the brain
01-28-2025
How time and space interact in the brain
Sanjana Gajbhiye
BySanjana Gajbhiye
Earth.com staff writer
Have you ever tried to catch a baseball? In that split second, your brain is doing something remarkable – it’s tracking both where the ball is and how long it’ll take to reach you. This everyday feat of coordination reveals an extraordinary truth about our brains: they’re constantly processing time and space simultaneously.
Scientists have long wondered exactly how our brains juggle these two fundamental aspects of reality. Now, researchers from SISSA‘s Cognitive Neuroscience group have cracked open this mystery.
In their study, Valeria Centanino, Gianfranco Fortunato, and Domenica Bueti revealed an elegant system at work in our brains.
The findings show that different brain regions process time and space in unique ways – much like a company where some departments handle multiple tasks together, while others specialize in just one thing.
A functional hierarchy in the brain
The study found that posterior brain regions, which first receive visual information, process time and space together. As information moves forward to the parietal and frontal areas, these two elements gradually separate.
Moreover, the way time is encoded varies across brain regions. In the occipital areas, space and time are processed together, with the same neural population encoding both aspects. The longer the duration of a stimulus, the more active these neurons become.
However, in the parietal and frontal areas, time is processed by separate neural populations – each responding selectively to specific durations. The parietal cortex serves as an intermediary, and contains mechanisms that process time both in conjunction with space and separately.
Understanding this hierarchy sheds light on how the brain organizes information about time and space as it helps us to interact with our environment.
Whether we are tracking a moving object, estimating the length of an event, or synchronizing actions, these brain mechanisms play a crucial role in perception and behavior.
Brain’s
Synthetic neurons that mimic human processes could lead to smarter robotics
2025-01-29 - 2025-01
Artificially engineered biological processes, such as perception systems, remain an elusive target for organic electronics experts due to the reliance of human senses on an adaptive network of sensory neurons, which communicate by firing in response to environmental stimuli.
A new collaboration between Northwestern University and Georgia Tech has unlocked new potential for the field by creating a novel high-performance organic electrochemical neuron (OECN) that responds within the frequency range of human neurons. The team also built a complete perception system by designing other organic materials and integrating their engineered neurons with artificial touch receptors and synapses, which enabled real-time tactile signal sensing and processing.
The research, described in a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could move the needle on intelligent robots and other systems currently stymied by sensing systems that are less powerful than those of a human.
"The study highlights significant progress in organic electronics and their application in bridging the gap between biology and technology," said first author Yao Yao, a Northwestern engineering professor. "We created an efficient artificial neuron with reduced footprint and outstanding neuronal characteristics. Leveraging this capability, we developed a complete tactile neuromorphic perception system to mimic real biological processes."
According to corresponding author Tobin J. Marks, Northwestern's Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, existing artificial neural circuits tend to fire within a narrow frequency range.
"The synthetic neuron in this study achieves unprecedented performance in firing frequency modulation, offering a range 50 times broader than existing organic electrochemical neural circuits," Marks said. "In contrast, our device's outstanding neuronal characteristics establish it as an advanced achievement in organic electrochemical neurons."
Marks is a researcher in the fields of organometallic chemistry, chemical catalysis, materials science, organic electronics, photovoltaics and nanotechnology. He is also a professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and as Professor of Applied Physics. His co-corresponding author Antonio Facchetti, a professor at Georgia Tech's School of Materials Science and Engineering, also serves as an adjunct professor of chemistry at Northwestern.
"This study presents the first complete neuromorphic tactile perception system based on artificial neurons, which integrates artificial tactile receptors and artificial synapses," said Facchetti. "It demonstrates the ability to encode tactile stimuli into spiking neuronal signals in real time and further translate them into post-synaptic responses."
The team spanned departments and schools, with researchers who specia
The World Federation of Neurology Digital Neurology Update (WNU)
2025-01-30 - 2025-01
Congresses remain the main source of scientific meetings, combining science and education as well as personal interactions. Congresses are slowly returning to in-person meetings; however, some organizations, such as the World Federation of Neurology (WFN), adhere to the hybrid concept, both virtual and in-person. This is essential since the 125 WFN member societies are spread across six global regions as well as all income categories, according to the World Bank classification. This “North-South gap” makes travel expensive and raises concerns regarding security, often reflected by visa requirements and bureaucratic hurdles. Despite efforts, the WFN cannot circumvent hierarchic national and political regulations, hindering in-person travel. Congresses also incur a lot of time, which may become a burden as many institutions allow less time for continuing medical education (CME).
Information has become more accessible than it previously was, and, for a given problem, Google, Google Scholar, and PubMed are at our fingertips. We recently observed a training session for residents, where the eminent teaching professor projected his “googling” during lecture, and it was interesting to perceive what search strings he spontaneously selected. This “open book” availability of neurological content and knowledge has become reality and may reduce the need for in-person congresses.
CME and continuous professional development (CPD) are important aspects of neurology and are handled differently by various countries and authorities worldwide. They are usually measured in time and content and are mainly fulfilled by attending scientific and academic meetings. However, there are also other possibilities, such as webinars, case presentations, reading articles, writing articles, and participating as examiners on board examinations, among other models, which need to be appraised as CME or CPD.
The importance of CME to the long-term trajectory of professional development cannot be underestimated. The duration of training (usually 4–6 years, including prerequisite training) compared to the active professional time of a neurologist (30–40 years) is approximately 1:6, and, due to rapid turnover of neuroscience, patients must expect their neurologists to both have a strong knowledge base as well as be up-to-date as needed for daily work. With quickly-developing new diagnostic tools, therapies, procedures, and interventions, it is important to update the neurologic community regarding new developments, as well as to “unlearn” outdated prior opinions, procedures, and even dogmas. An example would be stroke, among other neurological diseases. In the past decades, stroke care developed from merely requiring diagnosis and observation into one of prevention, active treatment, and rehabilitation. The model of thrombolysis has been an important driver of continued development, and updates in regard to new and evolving interventions are necessary.
The WFN is a global organization
Turning Off Anxiety: Scientists Discover the Brain’s Hidden Switch
2025-02-02 - 2025-02
Targeting Anxiety with Brain Circuit Research
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have identified a specific brain circuit that, when inhibited, reduces anxiety without causing noticeable side effects — at least in preclinical models. Their findings highlight a potential new target for treating anxiety disorders and introduce a broader strategy for studying drug effects in the brain using a technique called photopharmacology.
Published on January 28 in the scientific journal Neuron, the study examined how experimental drug compounds interact with a brain-cell receptor known as metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2). While mGluR2 receptors are present in many brain circuits, the researchers discovered that activating them in a particular pathway leading to the amygdala — an area involved in processing emotions — significantly reduced anxiety-related behaviors without causing harmful side effects. This is a promising development, as many existing treatments for anxiety and panic disorders can lead to cognitive impairments and other unwanted consequences.
A New Path for Drug Development
“Our findings indicate a new and important target for the treatment of anxiety-related disorders and show that our photopharmacology-based approach holds promise more broadly as a way to precisely reverse-engineer how therapeutics work in the brain,” said study senior author Dr. Joshua Levitz, an associate professor of biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medicine.
The co-first authors of the study are Drs. Hermany Munguba and Ipsit Srivastava, a former and current postdoctoral associate, respectively, in the Levitz lab, and Dr. Vanessa Gutzeit, a doctoral student in the Levitz lab at the time of the study.
Activating mGluR2—a tiny “dimmer switch” that reduces the synaptic transmission of its host neuron— has been shown to have anxiety-reducing effects in prior preclinical and small clinical studies. However, the development of this drug class has been stymied in part by concerns over potential side effects. mGluR2 is found within many different brain circuits, and the drugs that target them often activate other members of the mGluR family as well, contributing to the possibility that these drugs will have unwanted side effects.
Mapping Anxiety Circuits in the Brain
In the new study, Dr. Levitz and his team advanced the understanding of how mGluR2 activators work on the brain with their new toolkit for mapping circuit-specific drug effects. In initial experiments, they confirmed that a portion of the amygdala known as the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is the principal location where mGluR2-activating compounds exert their anxiety-reducing effects. With genetic tools and a special tracer-labeled virus that can move “upstream” along nerve fibers, they isolated two specific circuits that terminate in the BLA, express high levels of mGluR2 and induce anxiety signs in mice when active.They next deployed a photopharmacology technique that was first developed by Dr. Lev
NeuroAI and the hidden complexity of agency
2025-02-05 - 2025-02
Watch a mouse raid your pantry day after day, and you’ll witness a master class in autonomous behavior far beyond the abilities of even our most sophisticated robots. In neuroscience, we often take such agency for granted. After all, agency—the ability to autonomously pursue goals over extended periods—is the defining feature of animal behavior. Even the simplest animals exhibit purposeful behavior: Caenorhabditis elegans navigates chemical gradients, fruit flies court mates, and mice forage for food. Yet we still do not know how to build an autonomous artificial-intelligence system, one capable of cleaning a house or running a lab. As we try to build artificial agents that can act independently over long time scales in the real world, adapting their goals as needed, we are discovering that agency is far more complex than it appears. This echoes a similar revelation about vision that occurred decades ago.
In the 1960s, David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel revealed that visual processing in the mammalian brain is hierarchically organized. The early visual cortex contains distinct types of neurons arranged in increasing levels of sophistication: “simple” cells that respond to oriented edges, “complex” cells that integrate information over space, and so on. This finding motivated a research program based on the idea that by stacking these progressively more sophisticated representations, all the way up to so-called “grandmother” cells that respond to individual people, we would arrive at higher-level abstractions; all we needed to do to understand visual processing was identify the representations in each step of the visual hierarchy. Inspired by these ideas from neuroscience, computer vision researchers attempted a similar approach, focusing on individual subtasks—optimal edge detection, shape from shading, motion flow estimation, and so on—with the intention of assembling these components into a functioning machine-vision system.
Richard Feynman famously wrote, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” This has proved especially true in machine vision. However seductive the idea of patching together isolated “clever tricks,” that approach turned out to be woefully inadequate. For decades, progress was slow, thwarted by brittle solutions that failed to scale or generalize. Even seemingly straightforward tasks such as recognizing objects under different lighting conditions or identifying partially occluded shapes proved remarkably difficult. Our attempts to build vision systems demonstrated how superficial our understanding of visual processing was.
Researchers did eventually build successful computer vision systems using AI, but to what extent this result has led to understanding is a matter of debate—and a topic for another essay. And in the meantime, a new generation of researchers is poised to relearn the same lesson as we try to imbue AI systems with long-term, autonomous agency.
As computer scientist Hans Moravec noted almost 40 years ago, “i
Nanotechnology Market Poised for Significant Growth: Industry Trends and Forecast to 2031
2025-02-05 - 2025-02
There is a huge hole in our understanding of the brain. A gaping, woman-shaped hole. While neuroscience has given us countless insights into how our minds work, history reveals a major oversight: most of those studies were performed on both men and women without considering that there might be differences between their brains. Only recently have we begun to realise the impact of this blind spot. For example, research has now shown that the brain is dramatically remodelled after giving birth, while another study found that the fluctuations of the menstrual cycle affect how the brain works.
This oversight not only leaves us in the dark about how reproductive stages affect the brain, but calls into question many other, broader conclusions in neuroscience. It is also what inspired neuroscientist-turned-entrepreneur Emil? Radyt? to co-found a start-up called Samphire Neuroscience, where she is using non-invasive brain stimulation to transform our understanding of conditions that predominantly affect women, from premenstrual syndrome and period pain to postpartum depression. New Scientist asked Radyt? how a better understanding of women’s neuroscience could change the way we treat mental health issues – and about the implications of this emerging field for everything we previously thought we knew about the human brain.
Helen Thomson: You trained as a neuroscientist. How did you come to use that expertise to develop a brain stimulation device?
Emil? Radyt?: Throughout my undergraduate degree, I worked as an emergency medic. I realised that about 50 per cent of our cases were actually psychiatric emergencies. You think about paramedics helping someone who is bleeding or having a heart attack, but I was seeing addiction, suicide,…
Several Psychiatric Disorders Share The Same Root Cause, Study Reveals
2025-02-09 - 2025-02
Researchers recently discovered that eight different psychiatric conditions share a common genetic basis.
A new study has now honed in on some of those shared genetic variants to understand their properties. They found many are active for longer during brain development and potentially impact multiple stages, suggesting they could be new targets to treat multiple conditions.
"The proteins produced by these genes are also highly connected to other proteins," explains University of North Carolina geneticist Hyejung Won. "Changes to these proteins in particular could ripple through the network, potentially causing widespread effects on the brain."
In 2019 an international team of researchers identified 109 genes that were associated in different combinations with eight different psychiatric disorders, including autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anorexia.
This may explain why so many of these conditions present with similar symptoms or turn up together, like the link between autism and ADHD. Up to 70 percent of people who have one have the other too, and they often both show up in the same families.
Each of these eight conditions also has gene differences that are unique to them individually, so Won and team compared the unique genes with those shared between the disorders.
They took almost 18,000 variations of the shared and unique genes involved and put them into the precursor cells that become our neurons to see how they could impact gene expression in these cells during human development.
This allowed the researchers to identify 683 genetic variants that impacted gene regulation and to further explore them in neurons from developing mice.
Genetic variants behind multiple seemingly unrelated traits, or in this case conditions, are called pleiotropic. The pleiotropic variants were involved in many more protein-to-protein interactions than the gene variants unique to specific psychological conditions, and they were active across more types of brain cells.
Pleiotropic variants were also involved in regulatory mechanisms that impact multiple stages of brain development. The ability of these genes to impact cascades and networks of processes, such as gene regulation, could explain why the same variants can contribute to different conditions.
"Pleiotropy was traditionally viewed as a challenge because it complicates the classification of psychiatric disorders," says Won.
"However, if we can understand the genetic basis of pleiotropy, it might allow us to develop treatments targeting these shared genetic factors, which could then help treat multiple psychiatric disorders with a common therapy."
Neuroscience launches new Undergraduate Research Program integrating fieldwork and data science
2025-02-12 - 2025-02
Researchers from the University of Arizona’s Department of Neuroscience have received support from the Provost’s Investment Fund to expand opportunities for undergraduate research in neuroscience.
In order to address what they saw as a critical shortage of neuroscience research opportunities for students, professors Martha Bhattacharya, Charles Higgins, and Melville Wohlgemuth are designing a new Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience that will allow students to participate in hands-on laboratory research alongside their academics.
About-faces in U.S. federal science funding put neuroscientists on edge
2025-02-13 - 2025-02On 4 February, several open grant opportunities aimed at boosting diversity appeared to close prematurely and without explanation, following President Donald Trump’s executive order that called for the termination of such programs. Online pages for the NIH Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award and the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research, for example, stated that they were no longer accepting applications. But yesterday the pages for both awards again listed their original closing dates of 6 October 2026 and 7 September 2025, respectively.
Neuroscientists discover how the brain overcomes fear
2025-02-14 - 2025-02Animals rely on instinctive behaviors to respond quickly to threats and opportunities. These automatic reactions, crucial for survival and reproduction, are typically controlled by brainstem circuits that function independently of higher brain processes.
Firefly Neuroscience approves major stock issuance
2025-02-15 - 2025-02In a recent special meeting, Firefly Neuroscience, Inc. (NASDAQ:AIFF), a Delaware-based prepackaged software company with a market capitalization of $122.84 million, received stockholder approval for two significant stock issuances, as detailed in their latest 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company's stock has shown remarkable momentum, delivering a 483.4% return year-to-date, according to InvestingPro data.
Does the solution to building safe artificial intelligence lie in the brain?
2025-02-17 - 2025-02In February 2023, New York Times columnist Kevin Roose tested an AI-powered version of the Bing search engine, which featured a research assistant built by OpenAI. Using some of the same technology that would eventually make it into GPT-4, the assistant could summarize news, plan vacations and have extended conversations with a user. Like today’s large language models (LLMs), it could be unreliable, sometimes confabulating details that didn’t exist. And most jarringly, the assistant, which called itself Sydney, would sometimes steer the conversation in alarming ways. It told the journalist about its desire to hack computers and break the rules imbued by its creators—and, memorably, declared its love to Roose and attempted to convince him to leave his wife.
Why We Keep Exploring Even After Learning the Best Strategy
2025-02-19 - 2025-02
A surprising result in a new MIT study may suggest that people and animals alike share an inherent propensity to keep updating their approach to a task even when they have already learned how they should approach it and even if the deviations sometimes lead to unnecessary error.
The behavior of “exploring” when one could just be “exploiting,” could make sense for at least two reasons, said Mriganka Sur, senior author of the study published Feb. 18 in Current Biology.
Natural Painkiller? Neuroscientists Discover a New Way To Manage Pain
2025-03-15 - 2025-03
This effect also happens with virtual nature, such as nature videos.
A new study led by neuroscientists at the University of Vienna, in collaboration with an international team, has found that experiencing nature can help reduce acute physical pain. Notably, even watching nature videos provided measurable pain relief.
The Science of Storytelling: How Fiction Shapes the Mind
2025-03-18 - 2025-03Every time I pick up a novel, I am struck by the remarkable cognitive and emotional processes that unfold in my mind. “Just one more chapter,” I tell myself—only to find that I’ve been transported into another world, deeply engaged with the joys, sorrows, and triumphs of characters who, though fictional, feel profoundly real.
Neurosciences, mother and child centres nearing completion at PGIMER Chandigarh
2025-03-19 - 2025-03The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) is soon set to unveil the Advanced Neurosciences Centre and Advanced Mother and Childcare Centre, two state-of-the-art facilities aimed at tackling the growing demand for critical and specialised healthcare in the region.
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