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The short film, “Mood Atlas” has won Best Medical Documentary at the Sci-On Film Festival in Reno, Nevada.

Mood Atlas describes the experiences of Shane Hickey, who is living with Bipolar Disorder, and the research that is underway in the Clinical Neuroimaging Laboratory at NUI Galway to map Shane’s brain and emotions, to improve the diagnosis and treatment of this condition.

Mood Atlas was directed by multiple award-winning director, Mia Mullarkey of Ishka Films, and was funded by the Irish Health Research Board, through a Knowledge Exchange and Dissemination Grant, awarded to the former Director of the Galway Neuroscience Centre, Dr Dara Cannon.

The Sci-On Film Festival is the “Biggest Little Science + Fiction Film Festival in the World.” Their goal is to bring science fiction and science fact short films to audiences around the world – and to recognize, reward and showcase creativity, ingenuity and science-based imagination.

Congratulations to Shane, Dara, Mia and all involved in this wonderful film!

Ulysses Neuroscience Ltd., an Irish-based Private R&D Organization based in Trinity College Dublin, and FutureNeuro, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Chronic and Rare Neurological Diseases hosted at RCSI, today announced a strategic partnership to implement Proteus a project combining expertise in cytoskeletal modulation of synaptic plasticity and disruption of blood brain barrier to advance understanding on the biology of Fragile X Syndrome.

Fragile X Syndrome is caused by a mutation in the FMR1 gene and affects both men and women, but tends to be more common and more severe in males. This disorder  is characterized by intellectual disability and atypical social development. Fragile X Syndrome is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and affects 1 in 4,000 individuals.

Ulysses Neuroscience has research platforms dedicated to: i) preclinical analysis of cognitive/behavioural alterations and neurophysiological recording; ii) preclinical/clinical biomarker analysis (synaptic plasticity and cytoskeletal dynamics) of proteins and nucleic acids in biological fluids and post-mortem tissues; iii) clinical observational studies for cognitive and behavioural assessments and sampling of biological fluids.

FutureNeuro is the SFI Research Centre for Chronic and Rare Neurological Disease, hosted by RCSI. It has academic partners across the country in Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University College Dublin, NUI Galway, University College Cork and Waterford Institute of Technology. The vision of the centre is to enable people with neurological disorders to live independently.

For more see

FENS and its member societies are pleased to announce the grant and voucher programme in support of member scientists to attend the FENS 2020 Virtual Forum. 800 grants of 75 EUR each are available to FENS member scientists that have been negatively impacted by the Covid-19 crisis.

The deadline to apply is 12th May 2020. All details on eligibility and the application process can be found on the FENS website:

https://www.fens.org/en/Meetings/Meetings-Grants–Stipends/FENS-Virtual-Forum-Grant-and-Voucher-Programme/

The grants and voucher programme is available to scientists that have already registered to the FENS Forum as well as non-registered members. If you are a FENS member and have already registered for the Forum or are planning to do so, we highly encourage you to apply for this programme and take advantage of the reduced fee for participation.

Due to Covid-19 FENS 2020 will now be held in a virtual format.

Despite the change in format, there continues to be an excellent lineup of symposium and workshops for this forum.

Early registration and abstract submission has reopened and will close on 18th May 2020. For more information see https://forum2020.fens.org/abstracts/

For more see:

Its been a busy few months since our last newsletter. NSI has awarded 13 Travel Bursaries for young Irish Neuroscientists to present their work at FENS 2020, there are a number of events scheduled to mark Brain Awareness Week, The International Brain Bee Competition in Ireland and much, much more.  Click here to access the newsletter

Congratulations to the following NSI members that have been awarded Travel Bursaries to Attend FENS2020. We hope you enjoy the conference.

• Laura Boullon from NUI Galway
• Caitlin Devine from University of Ulster
• Erin Harris from University College Cork
• Edel Hughes from NUI Galway
• Rachel Humphrey from NUI Galway
• Oisin Joyce from Trinity College Dublin
• Megan Ni Bhroin from Trinity College Dublin
• Adaobi Okolo from NUI Galway
• Kapil Sharma from Trinity College Dublin
• Stephen Shovlin from Trinity College Dublin
• Aoife Thornton from NUI Galway
• Caoimhe Ward from University of Ulster
• Meimei Yang from NUI Galway