This workshop aims to provide neuroscientists with useful tips to plan an event for Brain Awareness Week 2021, from writing a successful proposal for Brain Awareness Week to running an engaging outreach event, both online and in-person.

Workshop organised by the FENS Communication Committee with the support of the Dana Foundation.

The blood-brain barriers are of great relevance in maintaining central nervous system (CNS) immune privilege and for the regulation of peripheral immunocytes trafficking within the brain. Anomalous brain-immune system crosstalk is acknowledged across neurodegenerative disorders, characterised by chronic infiltration of peripheral immunocytes within the CNS and neuroinflammation, eventually leading to neurodegeneration.

To gain a deeper understanding, FENS presents this unique opportunity to explore the world of neurodegenerative disorders and brain barriers pathology with esteemed speakers.

Webinar organised by the FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training (CHET).

Find useful resources to run a Brain Awareness Week event: organisation tips, ideas and inspirations.

Find the presentations from speakers with useful resources to run a Brain Awareness Week event in 2022: organisation tips, ideas and inspirations.

A brief history of the brain, featuring a few of the major scientists and findings that have contributed to modern neuroscience.

Graphic recording of The Brain Debate at the FENS 2020 Virtual Forum. Graphic by Engage Visually with the support of the Dana Foundation

The unique Collection of the wet material and histological preparations on the nervous system development and evolution are handled and maintains by our department. The human brain collection  is supported by the FENS History of Neuroscience online project.

Talk by Dr Javier de Felipe, Polytechnic University of Madrid

The appearance, expansion and differentiation of a highly complex multi-laminated cortex, the “neocortex” is a fundamental event during the evolution of the mammalian telencephalon. This cortical region is the most human part of the nervous system because it is the brain structure whose activity is directly related to the emergence of those capacities that distinguish humans from other mammals. Thanks to the neocortex we can perform such extraordinary and highly complex tasks as writing a book, composing a symphony or inventing the computer. Yet, what is special about the human cerebral cortex is a longstanding question in neuroscience. Fortunately, at present, there are methods that allow us to examine human brain organization and function at a level of detail similar to or even greater than that we can obtain with animal models. In this talk, I will emphasise how the application of these methods has shown that the human cerebral cortex displays clear species-specific variations in cortical microstructure and that it is likely that as more detailed studies are carried out on human cortical circuits, we will discover many more differences at the genetic, molecular, structural, and physiological levels between humans and other species. Thus, not only does the increase in size, and therefore in complexity, of our brains seem to be responsible for our higher or more abstract mental abilities but also, the specialization of our cortical circuits appears to be critical.

A report on the prospects of Brain Research within Horizon 2020: Responding efficiently to Europe’s societal needs

Sensing, feeling, moving, smelling, remembering… The brain controls every aspect of our body. It is the most complex organ, and works like billions of tiny computers at lightning speed.
But how can we study such a complex organ? This educational video aims at explaining how and why we study the brain to younger audiences.
This video has been developed by FENS-CARE, the Committee on Animal Research.

Malfunctioning of neuronal circuits and peripheral systems (e.g metabolism, immune or microbiota) underlie aspects of psychiatric disorders. One of the major challenges in neuroscience is understanding the mechanisms and temporal dynamics of such changes within discrete neuronal connections, or within precise peripheral players. Such understanding can reveal new therapeutic strategies and refine existing ones.

Webinar organised by the FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training (CHET), hosted on Neuronline.

Talk by Yoko Wang, The University of Adelaide

Since we were born, we have shared our life with millions of tiny little buddies in our gut. These tiny little buddies, or the gut microbiota, play important roles in regulating the gut-brain axis. In recent years, research in this field has rapidly grown, increasing our understanding on how gut microbiota communicate to the brain and influence our health. In this talk, we will unbox the amazing world of the microbiota-gut-brain axis – learning about their history, the current progress and future directions.

The Corpus Curiosum series was produced with the support of FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training (CHET)

This webinar aimed to provide participants with useful tips on how to write a successful Brain Awareness Week (BAW) application and how to run an engaging outreach event. The webinar will include a case study of a funded BAW project and an interactive Q&A session with the panellists to provide hands-on tips to the audience.

Talk by Folu Oyefeso, Loma Linda University

The human brain is a complex network of cells with special functions to control how we interact with the world. Within the brain, these cells are grouped into areas responsible for thinking, moving, sensing, among many other things! However, it is notoriously difficult to study the human brain directly and so scientists use animal and two-dimensional cell culture models to learn more about it. Recently, trained teams of cell biologists and neuroscientists have begun to generate three-dimensional brain organoids, which are small clumps of tissue containing the same types of cells we see in the brain. These tissues can model specific brain regions (e.g. cortex) and diseases (e.g. Zika virus infection or Parkinson’s disease). In this session, we’ll discuss how these models have been used and how they could be used in the future.

The Corpus Curiosum series was produced with the support of FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training (CHET)

In the average adult human, the brain represents about 2% of the body weight, yet it is responsible for all of the body’s functions. What does the brain mean to you?

Social media have profoundly changed the ways information is communicated and news can be manipulated by groups, aimed at spreading their opinions rather than scientifically verified data. As a consequence, communication has become more difficult for researchers who had to modify they way they communicate in order to meet the public attention.

During this event, panellists discussed and tried to understand the context in which fake-news develop, the basis for behaviours associated with fake-news and the brain areas and neurotransmitters associated with those behaviours.

This special interest event was organised by the FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training at the FENS Forum 2022 (9-13 July 2022, Paris).

Present-day fake news generates an “information disorder” in which news satire, parody, fabrication, manipulation, advertising, and propaganda are blended and denoted using a threefold distinction: (1) misinformation, that is, unintentional incorrect information; (2) disinformation, that is, the deliberate fabrication and/or sharing of false information; (3) mal-information, that is, deliberate publication of true private/sensitive information with change of context (cherry picking).

This EJN Editorial was published following the Special Interest Event organised at FENS Forum 2022 by the FENS Committee for Higher Education and Training (CHET).