The European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB) is an organization of more than 170 eminent brain scientists, including five nobel laureates, from 27 countries.
Launched in 1997, and modelled on the US-based Dana Alliance for the Brain Initiatives, EDAB is committed to enhancing the public's understanding of why brain research is so important.
EDAB brings the excitement of scientific progress to the general public and opinion-formers by working in partnership with charities, universities, schools, hospitals, the arts, the media and professional organizations. Every March, EDAB coordinates Brain Awareness Week, during which hundreds of public events in dozens of countries celebrate the progress of brain research. EDAB has offices at the Dana Centre in London, UK; and in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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NEUROSCIENCE IN EUROPE TODAY
An Interview with Piergiorgio Strata for Public Service Review: European Union
Piergiorgio Strata, Director of the European Brain Research Institute in Italy and a member of EDAB, says that USA is the epicentre of science but that Europe is finally gaining ground. Although hampered by lack of funds, Europe leads the way in several areas of neuroscience, such as brain imaging and deep brain stimulation. Discoveries in brain plasticity are central to understanding memory and learning. A better grasp of the brain-mind interaction in recent years has spawned new disciplines: neuroethics, neurophilosophy and neuroeconomics.
For young neuroscientists, Strata advises, “Consider science not [as] a struggle, but a way to enjoy life.”
EDAB Presents ‘‘Our Creative Brains” at the British Science Festival
An invitation to speak at ‘The Boileroom’ is probably not what most neuroscientists would expect to receive. But on 8 September, this arts venue played host to a group of them, along with three artists and a choreographer.
The topic for this year’s EDAB event at the British Science Festival was ‘Our Creative Brains.’ The Festival took place at the University of Surrey – but EDAB was keen to lure the neuroscientists out of the laboratory and chose this city centre venue.
“We were celebrating imagination and the artist’s talent at expressing it,” said Professor Morten Kringelbach, a speaker from Oxford University.
But, of course, science itself is creative. To discover what science can learn about itself, Dr Richard Wingate from King’s College London collaborates with an artist and an art historian to explore the way that microscopic images of the brain are captured and have been represented since the nerve cell was first discovered.
“The most beautiful thing in science is to make data form a pattern,” said Professor Paul Matthews from Imperial College who chaired the event. Yet for synaesthetes, patterns and shapes are stimulated by – in Philippa Stanton’s case – voices. Synaesthesia is the merging of the senses. Dr Jamie Ward from the University of Sussex is working with Stanton to investigate how certain properties of voices come to manifest themselves visually.
Do people with damaged brains have as rich a life as those with healthy brains? asked Matthews. Artists Richard Aylwin and Shelley James responded with an emphatic ‘yes.’ Recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome was the source of James’s inspiration for the glass sculptures of vision. Aylwin specialises in arts development mostly for disadvantaged people or children. Creativity, they said, can be seen as an alternative form of the nervous system, a ‘deep place’ of experience and awareness that are central to every human being.
There are close links between movement and emotion. Kringelbach and choreographer and dancer, Subrathra Subramaniam, described how dance, for example, evokes emotion in ourselves and in others. There is pleasure in being creative and in the reaction of observers or participants.
“It was a really exciting event for us because scientists love ideas,” said Matthews.
Morten Kringelbach, Shelley James and Subathra Subramaniam are interviewed on BBC Radio, Leading Edge http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mgyr1
Brain Test Britain is Underway
Celebrities, grown ups, children…. Millions of us are trying out brain training games and gadgets.
‘Develop Super Memory’, ‘Activate Your Brain IQ,’ ‘Improve Your Precision and Cognitive Control’ claim the advertisers. We are being persuaded that these games do anything from a simple work out to boosting your brain power.
But do they really work? The Alzheimer’s Society has teamed up with the BBC’s Lab UK to launch Brain Test Britain, a unique trial that will seek an answer to this question. Brain Test Britain will investigate the effects of brain training on mental fitness.
The public is invited to participate in groundbreaking scientific experiments online. Volunteers are being asked to train their brains for 10 minutes at a time, three times a week, for at least six weeks. The trial is open to anyone aged 18 or over. Alzheimer's Society is particularly keen to recruit people over 60 as these participants will help to answer important questions about whether Brain Training could maintain brain function and whether it could play a role in developing treatments to prevent dementia.
Initial results will be announced early in 2010 but the experiment will continue for a further nine months looking closely at whether brain training can maintain or even improve the brain.
The Alzheimer's Society hopes results will be a step towards solving whether brain training can reduce the risk of dementia. Professor Clive Ballard, Director of Research, Alzheimer's Society said, “Every week thousands of people spend time exercising their brain using some form of computer-based brain training, but the jury's still out on whether exercising your brain can boost your brain power.”
Around 700,000 people in the UK currently have dementia and experts have estimated that by 2051, the number could stand at 1.7m.
The Alzheimer's Society said even if brain function does improve through using the tests, there would still need to be a long-term study into whether this improved brain function could help protect people against the disease.
But Professor Clive Ballard, director of research at the charity, said the mass study could help solve "one of the biggest mysteries of the brain".
Brain Test Britain http://www.bbc.co.uk/bang/
Free Resources from the European Dana Alliance Available
The European Dana Alliance for the Brain offers a wide range of free publications on topics about the brain as well as health awareness and patient information resources.
The publications produced are available in several languages including English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Recently, Hungarian, Czech, and Polish have been added to the EDAB publication list. All are available to download in PDF form.
Our Staying Sharp Series provides information for patients, carers, health professionals and families. Topics covered in this series touch on Chronic Health Issues, Depression, Learning Throughout Life, Memory Loss and Aging and Quality of Life.
For interests in Brain Research our Annual Report on Brain Research describes and interprets important advances in neuroscience of the previous year.
We also have resources for teachers and secondary school students with Mindboggling and More Mindbogglers which is packed with information for the brain in fun format of games, riddles and puzzles.
For those who wish to have those common questions about brain research answered there is our pamphlet Q&A: Answering your Questions About Brain Research. This will provide answers to commonly asked questions about the brain and its disorders e.g. how brain-imaging techniques have affected neuroscience research.
Interview with Eminent Neuroscientists, including EDAB Members, Available on SfN Website.
As part of its online "History of Neuroscience" features, the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) in the United States has posted videos of interviews with eminent senior neuroscientists around the world. European Dana Alliance members Arvid Carlsson and Rita Levi-Montalcini are among those interviewed for the series. The videos are part of SfN's "The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography" series.
Nobel Laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini Celebrates 100th Birthday on 22 April, 2009
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| Credit: Courtesy of the European Brain Research Institute |
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This remarkable neuroscientist started her research career in a laboratory set up in her bedroom in Turin, Italy during World War II. Rita Levi-Montalcini pioneered research into nerve growth factor (NGF). Her research has been fundamental to the understanding of trophic factors in the control of embryonic tissue development. Her seminal findings concerning the role of NGF have opened new areas of research in neuronal plasticity and repair, with implications for neurodegenerative diseases.
She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1986, which she shared with her colleague Stanley Cohen. She is a founding member of the European Dana Alliance for the Brain. |
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Also see:
Interview with Levi-Montalcini at 100
European Brain Research Institute Celebrates 100th Birthday of Rita Levi-Montalcini.
Dana Press to Publish English Edition of Rita Levi-Montalcini Biography.
Birthday Greetings Sent from Members of the Dana Alliances.
AUDIO AVAILABLE FOR THE STAYING SHARP WISDOM, AGEING, AND COGNITIVE MEETING
The European Dana Alliance and the University of the Third Age co-sponsored "Wisdom, Ageing and Cognitive Fitness", a Staying Sharp panel discussion at The Royal Society on 12 March, 2009. The event was part of the international Brain Awareness Week celebration.
The panel discussion centered on three main questions:
- What can we do to increase our chances of having healthy, busy brains into old age?
- How can older people continue to make important contributions to society?
- What is the evidence for the "use it or lose it" hypothesis?
Colin Blakemore, University of Oxford, Felicia Huppert, director of Cambridge interdisciplinary Research Centre on Ageing, and Tom Kirkwoood, University of New Castle,were the discussants. Vivienne Parry, writer and broadcaster was the moderator.
You can listen to the audio from the event.