The Federation of European Neurosciences Societies (FENS) held its 8th Forum of Neuroscience in Barcelona, Spain, from July 14th to 18th 2012. Organized every two years since 1998, the FENS Forum is the largest meeting for neuroscientists in Europe. This year, it gathered more than 6500 scientists from all over the world, who were able to present, share and learn from the latest and most important advances in brain research, in fields like learning and memory, synaptic plasticity, neurodegeneration, neurodevelopment, behavior and emotion, psychiatric disorders, genetics, epigenetics, etc.
The program was very attractive, with a combination of plenary lectures, parallel symposia, technical workshops and special lectures every day. Poster presentations played a very big role, with four sessions each day and more than 2500 posters displayed during the whole event.
One of the special lectures held at the FENS Forum was dedicated to the winners of the Brain Prize in its inaugural 2011 edition. The Brain Prize is awarded by the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation to one or more scientists who have contributed to European neuroscience advance with an outstanding and relevant research. Although nominees can be of any nationality, the prize is aimed at researchers whose work has been carried out in Europe or in collaboration with neuroscientists in Europe.
The three awarded researchers are native Hungarians. The prize therefore seeks to also recognize the recent contribution of Hungarians to neuroscience that follows the tradition already started by scientists like Károly Schaffer (who gave name to ´Schaffer collaterals´) or Mihály Lenhossék (who introduced the term ´astrocyte´). Somogyi, Freund and Buzsáki have worked together, as reflected in several collaborations and joint publications, with their research focused on the structure and function of complex circuits of nerve cells, particularly in the hippocampus, as unravelling these is important for the understanding of information processing.
During the FENS lecture, Peter Somogyi explained his concept of the unity of time and space in the brain, an idea he has termed ´chronocircuitry´. He presented his latest work aiming at understanding the functional organization of the brain by identifying the specific neuronal subtypes that make up a given neuronal circuit, their morphology, the particular expression of certain neurotransmitters and receptors and their input-output relationships.
In his talk, Tamás Freund presented how different types of interneurons modulate neuronal oscillation in the cortex and hippocampus and the role of endocannabinoid signaling. To explain it, Freund used a comic, yet very didactic video of an octopus: In the animation the octopus represented the interneuron, holding in its tentacles several swimmers (pyramidal cells) under the water. When the octopus releases the swimmers, they all go and reach the surface of the water at the same time to catch their breath, therefore, representing the role of interneurons in synchronizing pyramidal cells to fire at the same time and frequency. In the same way, release of endocannabinoids by a pyramidal cell inhibits GABA release by the interneuron onto them - thus, avoiding synchronization. This was shown in the video as a Bob Marley-looking swimmer who, by smoking marijuana (the analogue to endocannabinoid release), had escaped from the octopus tentacles and could thus breathe at his own rate.
Finally, György Buzsáki presented his recent work on how brain rhythms coordinate cell assemblies - transiently active ensembles of neurons- to allow them to perform operations like encoding memories or reasoning. The idea behind his research is that hierarchical organization of cell assemblies can be seen as a ´neural syntax´, i.e. as a mean of an ordered language construction in the brain.
In addition to the scientific program, a number of social and special events were organized, such as 'Cooking with the brain' about the evolution of food perception, 'Meet the expert' and 'Build your career', giving scientists and industrial partners the chance to meet other scientists in a more informal environment or the 'Jump the FENS Party'. Finally, participants had the opportunity to visit several touristic attractions in the city as well as museums, such as the Museum of Natural Sciences, located next to the FENS venue.
The Forum took place at the International Convention Center of Barcelona (CCIB), right in front of the beach, by the Mediterranean sea, an ideal location to allow everyone to enjoy the warm temperatures and sunshine weather before, in-between and after the daily sessions.
[1] Soltesz I, Trends in Neurosciences, 2011
The Brain Prize: http://www.thebrainprize.org/flx/the_brain_prize/
By Violeta Castelo Szekely, MSc Student Medical Neurosciences
This article originally appeared 2012 in CNS Volume 5, Issue 3, Engineering the Brain
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