On May 1, NeuroCampus Aarhus hosted ”Neuroscience Day 2018 - Rewarding Neuroscience”. The event was open to all students, researchers, clinicians, therapists, caregivers, foundations and organizations interested in neuroscience.

The central themes this year was "Reward and Punishment, Gambling and Addiction, Compulsion and Motivation, and Pleasure and Anhedonia”, i.e. the underlying molecular mechanisms in the healthy brain and what goes wrong in the diseased or affected brain. 

Brain Prize Winner Prof Ray Dolan, Dr. Thomas Ramsøy from Neurons Inc. And Prof Morten Kringelbach from Hedonia and Center for Music in the Brain set the stage for many interesting talks and discussions on the topics.

Prof Morten Kringelbach was interviewed on P1 morgen regarding his keynote lecture on “Hedonia and eudaimonia: Towards whole-brain models in health and disease” at Neuroscience Day 2018. In the interview he explains how psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, under controlled circumstances can help terminal cancer patients who suffers from anxiety and depression. Listen to the full interview here.

We are truly grateful for the great support from Aarhus University and The Brain Prize, as well as from Janvier Labs (lunch sponsor and exhibitor), Zeiss (poster prize sponsor and exhibitor), AgnTho’s, BioNordika, Nordic Biosite, and Olympus (all exhibitors).

The Book of Abstracts was printed as an issue of Acta Neuropsychiatrica - an International Journal of Translational Neuropsychiatry. An online version is available here.  

Program

Link to the program

Program in PDF

Link to sponsors and exhibitions

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Winner of Zeiss poster prize

Translation regulation in neurodegenerative diseases: what we know about the eukaryotic elongation factor-2 (eEF2K) kinase in Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease

Asad Jan¹, Brandon Jansonius³, Alberto Delaidelli², Forum Bhanshali⁴, Nelson Ferreira⁵, Gian Luca Negri², Poul H. Jensen⁵, Ian MacKenzie², Stefan Taubert⁴, Poul H. Sorensen^2,3.

¹Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University, Department of Biomedicine, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
²Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada ³British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1L3 Canada
⁴Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, Child and Family Research Institute, Department of Medical Genetics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4, Canada
⁵Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience, Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Ole Worms Allé 3, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

Winners of NeuroCampus poster prizes

Development of a novel in vitro model of Parkinson’s disease to study prion-like spreading of a-synuclein aggregate pathology in mouse brain tissue

Sara Elfarrash^{1,2, 4}, Emil Gregersen^{1, 2}, Nanna Møller Jensen^{1, 2}, Nelson Ferreira^{1, 2}, Cristine Betzer^{1, 2}, Sadegh Nabavi ^{1, 3}, Poul Henning Jensen^{1, 2}.

¹Neurodegenerative disease laboratory and Nabavi group, Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience – DANDRITE, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
²Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark 3Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics
⁴Mansoura University, Egypt

Effect of Maternal Exercise on Developmental Programming of Hippocampal Neuroglial Plasticity and associated Behavioural Deficits Induced by High-Fat Diet
  
Gudrun Winther¹, Maryam Ardalan^1,2,3, Jibrin Danladi¹, Bardia Varasteh¹, Fenghua Chen¹, Ali H. Rafati^1,2, Brian Hansen³, Amanda Eskelund¹, Heidi Kaastrup Müller¹, Betina Elfving¹, Sten Lund⁴, Anders Lade Nielsen⁵, Gregers Wegener¹.

¹Department of Clinical Medicine, Translational Neuropsychiatry Unit, Aarhus University, Risskov, Denmark ²Department of Physiology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
³Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
⁴Department of Endocrinology and Internal Medicine Medical Research Laboratory, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark
⁵Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Response inhibition after deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease patients

Andreas Højlund¹, Mikkel V. Petersen¹, Kousik Sarathy Sridharan^1,3, Marie Louise Holm Møller², Amalie Staggemeier², Sabine Grene Thomsen², Mette Møller³, Erik Lisbjerg Johnsen³, Yury Shtyrov¹, Karen Østergaard^1,3.

¹Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus University.
²Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics, Aarhus University
³Department of Neurology, Aarhus University Hospital

MVPA analysis of ITPC data as a tool to classify automatic neurolinguistic processes in the brain

Mads Jensen^1,2, Rasha Hyder^1,2, Yury Shtyrov^1,2.

¹NeDComm - NeuroDynamics of Human Communication Lab
²Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN) Aarhus University, Denmark

Involvement of the CD163 receptor in the alphasynuclein induced neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease

Sara R.A. Ferreira¹, Ida Klæstrup¹, Pia Svedsen^1,2, Søren K. Moestrup^1,2, Marina Romero-Ramos¹.

¹Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Denmark
²Department of Cancer and Inflammation Research, Syddansk University, Odense, Denmark

Alpha-synuclein aggregates activate calcium pump SERCA leading to calcium dysregulation – a new mechanism with therapeutical potential

Betzer C^1,2, Lassen LB^1,2, Olsen A³, Kofoed RH^1,2, Reimer L^1,2, Gregersen E^1,2, Zheng J^1,2, Calì T⁴, Gai WP⁵, Chen T⁶, Moeller A^1,7, Brini M8, Fu Y⁹, Halliday G⁹, Brudek T¹⁰, Aznar S¹⁰, Pakkenberg B¹⁰, Andersen JP², Jensen PH^1,2.

¹Neurodegenerative disease laboratory, Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience - DANDRITE, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
²Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
³Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
⁴Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
⁵Neuropathological Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Center for Neurological Diseases, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
⁶Department of Medical Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA, Australia. ⁷Department of Structural Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt, Germany.
⁸Department of Biology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
⁹Brain & Mind Centre, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. ¹⁰Research Laboratory for Stereology and Neuroscience, Bispebjerg- Frederiksberg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark.

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Invited keynote speakers:

• 2017 Brain Prize Winner Prof. Ray Dolan, University College London. More information here
• Prof. Morten Kringelbach, Aarhus University and University of Oxford. More information here
• Dr. Thomas Ramsøy, Neurons Inc. More information here

Invited speakers:

• Prof. Kristine Rømer Thomsen, Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University
• Prof. Rikke Schubart, Dept. for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark
• Prof. Duda Kvitsiani, DANDRITE, Aarhus University
• Prof. Simon Glerup, Dept. of Biomedicine, Aarhus University
• Tadeusz Hawrot, Senior Policy Officer, European Brain Council  

Foundations, associations, and organizations in attendance:

• The Brain Prize, Lundbeckfonden
• Novo Nordisk Foundation
• Dansk Selskab for Neurorehabilitering
• SIND – Landsforeningen for psykisk sundhed