Plenary lectures

Continuing a successful formula, at our last congresses, we will again have six plenary lectures as part of the scientific programme. Our line-up:

PL.01 Endophenotypes in schizophrenia  Robert Freedman, USA   Robert Freedman, M.D., is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and trained at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Chicago. For the past 40 years he has been Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Director of the Schizophrenia Research Center. Dr. Freedman has published over 350 scientific articles. He has received the A.E. Bennett Prize of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the William K. Warren Award of the International Congress of Schizophrenia Research, the Merit Award of the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Lieber Award for Schizophrenia Research of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of the United States and has served as Editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry since 2006. His work has pioneered the study of neurobiological endophenotypes of psychiatric disorders. Endophenotypes have been studied for genetics to diagnoses, but one of their most valuable uses is as targets for the development of new treatments. Dr. Freedman’s lecture will examine the use of an endophenotype for treatment development across illnesses, including both schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder, and over the continuum from fetal brain development to adulthood.

PL.02 Multimodal neuroimaging in brain disease Gaël Chételat, France Gaël Chételat (PhD, HDR; www.gael-chetelat.fr) is Director of Research at Inserm. She is responsible of a research team named «Multimodal Neuroimaging and Lifestyle in Ageing and Dementia». She has published more than 120 articles on neuroimaging in ageing and dementia. Her work is devoted to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying ageing and dementia processes and the lifestyle factors that could prevent or delay age-associated disorders. The specificity of her team is to conduct studies combining complementary neuroimaging modalities, including structural and functional MRI with PET using different radiotracers, and to develop innovative multimodal neuroimaging approaches to disentangle complex mechanisms of diseases or cognitive processes. Her research team is also interested in promoting healthy ageing and wellbeing through non-pharmaceutical interventions. In particular, Gaël Chételat is coordinating an H2020 European grant (www.silversantestudy.eu, PHC22, 2015-2020) that will investigate the impact of English learning and meditation training on mental health and well-being in ageing populations. In her talk, Gaël Chételat will illustrate what multimodal neuroimaging tells us on the physiopathology of dementia towards further understanding and prevention of neurodegenerative diseases.

PL.03 Brain Prize Award lecture – Synaptic plasticity in health and disease Graham Collingridge, UK/Canada Graham Collingridge is the Ernest B. and Leonard B. Smith Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is also a Senior Investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada. He also holds an appointment at the University of Bristol, UK (since 1994) as the Professor of Neuroscience in Anatomy in the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience. He has served as Departmental Chairs of Pharmacology at the University of Birmingham, UK (1990-1994) and of Anatomy at the University of Bristol (1997-1999). He was also the Director of the MRC Centre for Synaptic Plasticity at the University of Bristol (1999-2012). He has served as Editor-in-Chief of Neuropharmacology (1993 - 2010) and as the President of the British Neuroscience Association (2007 - 2009). He is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Hello Bio. His research focuses on the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in health and disease, in particular, understanding synaptic plasticity in molecular terms and how pathological alterations in these processes may contribute to major disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease

PL.04 ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award lecture: a journey into serotonin: 40 years of discoveries and surprises  Michel Hamon, France

PL.05 From genes to clinical phenotype in ADHD across the lifespan Barbara Franke, The Netherlands Barbara Franke is a Professor of Molecular Psychiatry at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and a Principal Investigator at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour in Nijmegen. Educated as a molecular biologist in Giessen (Germany) and Utrecht (Netherlands), and trained as a geneticist, she leads a research group focused on understanding the genetic contribution to (neurodevelopmental) psychiatric disorders, especially attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In addition to gene-identification approaches involving common and rare genetic variation, she uses bioinformatics, neuroimaging (genetics), as well as cell and small animal models in interdisciplinary approaches to map the biological pathways leading from gene to disease, which she will talk about in her lecture. It is her goal to make genetic information useful for improving the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders. She coordinates several interdisciplinary international consortia, including the International Multicentre persistent ADHD Collaboration (IMpACT), the ECNP Network ‘ADHD across the Lifespan’, and two EU-funded consortia on ADHD and related phenotypes, Aggressotype on aggressive behaviour (www.aggressotype.eu) and MiND on ADHD and autism (www.mind-project.eu . She also is a member of the management team of the ENIGMA Consortium on neuroimaging (genetics). Barbara Franke has received several prizes and awards for her work. She has published over 300 papers, her current H-factor is 64. For a full CV, please see http://www.ru.nl/people/donders/franke-b/ .

PL.06 Cognitive and functional remediation in affective disorders Annabel Martinez-Aran, Spain Anabel Martinez-Aran is clinical psychologist, Doctor in Psychology and Master’s degree in Diagnosis and psychological therapies by the University of Barcelona. She is a researcher of the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), and of the CIBER on Mental Health (CIBERSAM). She works as Senior specialist at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona as part of the Barcelona Bipolar Disorders Program and is Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona. She has lectured and published several book chapters and articles on neuropsychological issues, and psychological interventions with regard to bipolar disorders. In 2005, Dr Martinez-Aran received the highest award for her doctoral thesis on Neuropsychology of bipolar disorder by the University of Barcelona. She received a NARSAD Independent Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in 2013.