̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Dervila Glynn

Cambridge BRAINFest 2017 kicks off a weekend celebrating the wonders of the brain

cjb250 — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 23:43:52 +0000

̽��ֱ��festival, which runs until Sunday 25 June, will allow audiences to quiz more than 130 leading Cambridge neuroscientists on everything from why we get fat to how to repair a ‘broken’ brain.

“We’re really excited by the opportunity to share the cutting-edge brain research taking place at Cambridge with the public,” says Dr Dervila Glynn, coordinator of Cambridge Neuroscience, who is organising the event. “This is a chance for everyone to exercise their brain cells in a fun and engaging way. And along the way, I think everyone – adults, children and our professors – will learn something new.”

Tonight at the Babbage Lecture Theatre, BBC Horizon presenter Dr Giles Yeo will reveal why we are all getting fatter, while Professor Usha Goswami will explain how dyslexic brains may be “in tune but out of time”. Poet Lavinia Greenlaw will perform a moving poem about dementia, while Cambridgeshire-based Dance Ensemblé explores the story of Parkinson’s disease through the medium of dance – before Professor Roger Barker describes how to repair the diseased brain.

On Saturday and Sunday, the Cambridge Corn Exchange transforms into an interactive tour of the brain, with themes including ‘Development’, ‘Brain & Body’, ‘Pain & Pleasure’, Perception & Imagination’ and ‘Learning & Forgetting’ spanning research from molecules to man. Visitors, adults and children alike, will get the opportunity to take part in experiments across 30 different interactive exhibits, build their own brain and get the chance to see a series of films looking at conditions such as dementia and OCD. Café Scientifique will explore the breadth of brain science from body clocks and brain networks to the weird and wonderful world of the naked mole-rat.

On Saturday night, a panel of experts from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust will explore ways to help us better understand and treat mental health disorders and look at how we can bridge the existing gap between neuroscience research and current practice in the health service. ̽��ֱ��panel, chaired by Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, will look at issues including how the brain and body interact, the stigma surrounding mental health problems, and the transition between child and adult psychiatry.

Those wishing to stretch their legs as well as their minds can pick up a ‘Neurotrail’ map at the Corn Exchange, which will lead them around the places, people, and discoveries that have put our city at the heart of our understanding of the brain. Explorers can discover scientific instruments, first editions of old manuscripts and stories surrounding some of the brain scientists throughout Cambridge’s history at a number of special ‘pop up brain-themed exhibitions’: Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library and the Whipple Museum will open to visitors on Saturday 24 June, and the Old Library at Christ’s College will be open to visitors on Sunday 25 June.

School children from in and around Cambridge have been busy creating brain-inspired art, which will help transform the foyer of the Corn Exchange into a BRAINArt exhibition of brain-inspired art by local school children.

All events are free, but booking is recommended for the evening events at the Babbage Lecture Theatre. Further details, including how to book, can be found on the Cambridge BRAINFest 2017 website.

Join the #CambridgeBRAINfest conversation on Twitter @CamNeuro and on Facebook

Cambridge today (23 June) begins a three-day celebration of the wonders of the brain, with talks, hands-on activities and a ‘secret cinema’ – all part of Cambridge BRAINFest 2017, a free public festival celebrating the most complex organ in the body.

This is a chance for everyone to exercise their brain cells in a fun and engaging way. And along the way, I think everyone – adults, children and our professors – will learn something new

Dervila Glynn

A Health Blog

Exercise Plays Vital Role Maintaining Brain Health (edited)

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Stimulate your brain with the Cambridge BRAINFest 2017

cjb250 — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 09:14:32 +0000

̽��ֱ��three day event, running from 23-25 June, will allow audiences to quiz more than 130 leading Cambridge neuroscientists on everything from dementia and dyslexia through to memory and mental health.

“We’re all fascinated by the brain – its complexity is what makes us so unique as a species,” says Dr Dervila Glynn, coordinator of Cambridge Neuroscience, who is organising the event. “Cambridge is one of the major centres in the UK, if not the world, for studying how the brain works, and why in many cases it goes wrong, leading to disease. Cambridge BRAINFest is our chance to showcase the brilliant work that is taking place across the city.”

Throughout the weekend, the Cambridge Corn Exchange will be transformed into an interactive tour of the brain, with themes including ‘Development’, ‘Brain & Body’, ‘Pain & Pleasure’, Perception & Imagination’ and ‘Learning & Forgetting’ spanning research from molecules to man. Visitors, adults and children alike, will get the opportunity to take part in experiments across 30 different interactive exhibits and even build their own brain. A ‘Secret Cinema’ will show a series of films that illustrate how Cambridge researchers are tackling conditions such as dementia and OCD. Meanwhile, Café Scientifique will explore the breadth of brain science from body clocks and brain networks to the weird and wonderful world of the naked mole-rat.

On 23 June, the opening night, audiences at the Babbage Lecture Theatre will hear from BBC Horizon presenter Dr Giles Yeo about why we are all getting fatter, from Professor Usha Goswami about how dyslexic brains may be in tune but out of time, and from Professor Roger Barker on how we can repair the degenerating brain. Poet Lavinia Greenlaw will perform a moving poem about dementia, while Cambridgeshire-based Dance Ensemblé will explore the story of Parkinson’s disease through the medium of dance.

̽��ֱ��following night, Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, will chair a panel discussion with mental health experts from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and from Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, looking at the ongoing research that will help us better understand and treat mental health disorders and how we can bridge the existing gap between neuroscience research and current practice in the health service. ̽��ֱ��panel will look at issues including how the brain and body interact, the stigma surrounding mental health problems and the transition between child and adult psychiatry.

For those wishing to take advantage of the sights around Cambridge, a historical self-guided ‘Neurotrail’ will lead explorers around the places, people, and discoveries that have put our city at the heart of our understanding of the brain. Maps will be available at the Corn Exchange on the weekend.

̽��ֱ��foyer of the Corn Exchange will be transformed by BRAINArt, an exhibition of brain-inspired art by local school children. In the lead up to Cambridge BRAINFest, Dr Glynn visited 1,400 pupils, talked about the brain and enthused her audiences about the body’s most complex organ.

“As a researcher, it can be thrilling to discuss our work with the public,” says Professor Angela Roberts, chair of the organising committee. “It’s an opportunity for us to share some of the excitement that comes from working at the cutting-edge of research. But equally, it’s a chance for us to hear the public’s views about our work. We expect some fascinating – and potentially challenging – discussions will arise.”

Cambridge BRAINFest 2017 builds on the success of major public engagement events organised by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, including the Cambridge Science Festival in spring and the Festival of Ideas in autumn.

All events are free, but booking is recommended for the evening events at the Babbage Lecture Theatre. Further details, including how to book, can be found on the Cambridge BRAINFest 2017 website.

Join the #CambridgeBRAINfest conversation on Twitter @CamNeuro and on Facebook.

Why are we getting so fat? Why do teenagers really need to lie-in? And can we fix a broken brain? These are just some of the questions that will be answered at Cambridge BRAINFest 2017, a free public festival celebrating the most complex organ in the body.

Cambridge is one of the major centres in the UK, if not the world, for studying how the brain works, and why in many cases it goes wrong, leading to disease. Cambridge BRAINFest is our chance to showcase the brilliant work that is taking place across the city

Dervila Glynn

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̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Neuroscience – from molecules to mind

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 11:41:43 +0000

̽��ֱ��brain is an organ of extraordinary complexity. At a genetic level, over half of our genes are dedicated to the brain – building it and keeping it functional over a lifetime. At a cognitive level, the brain controls the ways we react to every situation and how the consequences of these reactions, according to reward or punishment, shape us as individuals.

To understand these things at a mechanistic level is a huge challenge – one that transcends biology. It increasingly involves novel alliances with mathematicians, physical scientists, computational scientists, psychologists and philosophers, and yields intellectual capital that stretches from pharmacology, psychiatry and philosophy through to education, engineering, ethics and economics.

When it became clear nearly ten years ago that neuroscience was growing at an extraordinarily fast rate and across a huge range of disciplinary lines, the ̽��ֱ�� set up Cambridge Neuroscience (see panel). Today this Strategic Research Initiative consists of over 700 researchers in more than 60 different departments across the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and its local institutes.

However, despite the incredible advances in science and technology that we have witnessed over the past century, we have not yet seen them translated into benefits for tackling brain disease in the same way as has been the case for cancer. ̽��ֱ��human brain with its approximately 10 billion neurons making 10 trillion synapses is clearly the most complex puzzle on the planet, and there are a myriad of ways it can go wrong or deteriorate. Translational research – which promises to translate the fundamental advances of neuroscience to progress in the understanding and treatment of brain and mental health disorders – has therefore become the cornerstone of Cambridge Neuroscience.

Dementia is one area where there is an urgent need to capitalise on the innovative research taking place and translate discoveries into effective treatments. In February 2015, the Prime Minister set out the government’s latest phase of its national programme to tackle one of the biggest global health and social care challenges, stating that it aims for England to be “the best place in the world” to undertake research into dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

To this end, Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) announced Europe’s first Drug Discovery Institutes (DDIs) for neurodegenerative diseases that cause dementia in late 2013. This ambitious initiative is a network of three DDIs, based at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and ̽��ֱ�� College London. ̽��ֱ��ARUK Cambridge DDI will build collaborations between Cambridge researchers, developing drug discovery projects based on the world-leading research carried out at the ̽��ֱ��. Led by drug discovery experts working in partnership with many of the UK’s academic leaders in this area, the alliance aims to attract 90 scientists across the three DDIs, all focused on neurodegenerative diseases. It now forms one of the largest and most coordinated efforts to find new drugs for dementia.

Cambridge Neuroscience also has a formidable track record when it comes to breaking down the barriers between science and business. A three-year collaboration between AstraZeneca, MedImmune and Cambridge Neuroscience, agreed in 2014, with a total value of approximately $6 million focuses on advancing research and development in neurodegenerative diseases. Scientists from all three parties are collectively addressing gaps in drug discovery, translational biomarkers and personalised healthcare approaches for diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. This type of strategic partnership promotes an increased understanding of disease mechanisms and enables work in basic neuroscience to address unmet therapeutic needs in a variety of serious neurodegenerative diseases.

Another recent example of Cambridge Neuroscience working innovatively in partnership with industry and other universities is a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Neuroimmunology of Mood Disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease. This major consortium, led from Cambridge, brings together Janssen, GSK, Lundbeck and Pfizer, as well as academics from Oxford, King’s College London, Southampton, Cardiff, Glasgow and Sussex, to explore the novel idea that immunological and inflammatory mechanisms may contribute to depression and dementia. One potential advantage of this strategy is that many anti-inflammatory drugs have already been developed for disorders like rheumatoid arthritis. So, if the consortium can discover the specific immune mechanisms implicated in these neuropsychiatric disorders, there is an opportunity to “repurpose” existing medicines to deliver therapeutic impact more rapidly than the 15–20 year timeline of a more conventional drug development project.

In 2014, Cambridge received a number of prestigious awards from the Medical Research Council totalling up to £28 million, which have provided funding for a new ultra-high field 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, a new combined positron emission tomography (PET)/MRI system, an upgraded 3T MRI system, and expanded and enhanced radiochemistry facilities, as well as equipment for high-performance computing to handle the large quantities of data generated by the new scanners. Funding from the ̽��ֱ�� will additionally support procurement of a new 9.4T MRI system for animal neuroimaging. This will help us develop new ways of classifying and simulating brain disease in animals, leading to better diagnosis and more effective drug discovery in humans.

Looking to the future, our aim is for these significant advances in imaging technology and expertise to help bring together basic and clinical neuroscientists with a focus on understanding and treatment of mental health symptoms in a proposed Centre for the Translational Neuroscience of Mental Health.

In September 2016, Cambridge Neuroscience will graduate from being a Strategic Research Initiative to become one of the ̽��ֱ��’s first Interdisciplinary Research Centres, demonstrating the ̽��ֱ��’s commitment to maintaining Cambridge’s position as a world class leader in multi-disciplinary neuroscience research.

Our aim is to maintain high standards of creativity and innovation in our approach to studying the brain in order to meet some of the greatest scientific challenges of the 21st century: understanding how brains are organised and grow, how they function normally to produce thoughts and feelings, how they can be affected by disease to cause neurological and mental health symptoms and, ultimately, how we can find better treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, autism and many other disabling disorders of brain and mind.

Neuroscience and brain research will be celebrated in a public festival planned for 16–18 September 2016 in Cambridge. For more details, see www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/events

Professor Ed Bullmore and Professor Bill Harris are Co-Chairs and Dr Dervila Glynn is the Coordinator of Cambridge Neuroscience.

Today, we commence a month-long focus on neuroscience. To begin, Ed Bullmore, Bill Harris and Dervila Glynn describe how this area of research is transforming our understanding of the healthy brain and promising new treatments for devastating disorders that affect millions of people.

̽��ֱ��human brain with its approximately 10 billion neurons making 10 trillion synapses is clearly the most complex puzzle on the planet, and there are a myriad of ways it can go wrong or deteriorate.

Hanno Svoboda

Growth cones of retinal axons (purple) growing among cells in the brain (green)

Benchmark analysis of neuroscience in Cambridge

Cambridge Neuroscience was formed in 2007, and in 2010 became one of the ̽��ֱ��’s first Strategic Research Initiatives.

In 2014, RAND Europe was commissioned to conduct an independent bibliometric analysis of 700+ researchers to assess the strength of the neuroscience community, and found that research by individuals currently affiliated with Cambridge Neuroscience has consistently had a substantially higher citation impact than the world average (approximately double).

̽��ֱ��researchers have approximately 2.5 times more articles than expected in the top 10% most highly cited publications. When compared with 49 other leading institutions in the UK publishing in the area of neuroscience, Cambridge has the highest citation impact for overall research portfolio, as well as the highest percentage of Highly Cited Publications. Nearly half the publications involve at least one national collaborator, and just over half involve at least one international collaborator.

RAND EUROPE reported: “ ̽��ֱ��findings suggest that research performance has continuously been high, and substantially above world averages. ̽��ֱ��benchmarking results clearly indicate that Cambridge Neuroscience has reinforced its position as one of the leading institutions in the UK working in the area of neuroscience.”

RAND also found that since the establishment of Cambridge Neuroscience, the collaboration rate and interconnectedness of neuroscience research both locally within Cambridge and between Cambridge neuroscientists and the international scientific community increased measurably.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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