Category: news

Recognizing faces is important in our daily interactions with others. How does your brain accomplish this? Come join us to hear from the stellar scientists who figured this out!

On Monday 2. September from 10:00 – 12:00 in Rikshospitalet B: Store auditorium, Sognsvannsveien 20, 0372 Oslo the 2024 Kavli Prize Neuroscience Laureates will give their lectures

Nancy Kanwisher, MIT
Winrich Freiwald, Rockefeller University
Doris Ying Tsao, Berkeley

https://www.kavliprize.org/events/kavli-prize-laureate-lectures-in-neuroscience  Don’t miss this opportunity to listen to these world class scientists!

To be hosted by Kristine Beate Walhovd, Chair of the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience committee

Images: Kavli

01 Feburay 2024, Oslo, Norway

Today, The Norwegian National anti-Alzheimer’s Disease Network (NO-AD), supported by Nasjonalforeningen for folkehelsen / The Norwegian Health Association, has appointed Mr. Jan Runar Eliassen as the Ambassador of the NO-AD ‘User Representative Comittee’. Mr. Jan Runar Eliassen (49/50) was diagnosed with dementia at 45 years of age (reference), and since then he has been actively involved in public dissemination of the knowledge of dementia as well as in raising funding and participating in social activities to fight against dementia.

Mr. Jan Runar Eliassen participated in the award-winning TV series (filmed by the Norwegian national TV station NRK) ‘Dementia Choir’ (reference) Season 1 and Season 2. Mr. Jan Runar Eliassen will be working with NO-AD coordinators Drs. Evandro Fei Fang (UiO) and Asgeir Kobro-Flatmoen (NTNU) in disseminating the latest scientific discoveries of dementia to the general population.

This short film directed by the former Hollywood casting director Karl Stavem, around 10 years ago, on #Alzheimer and how it affects family relationships, is worth seeing. It stars Kari Simonsen, Mia Gundersen, and Torunn Lødemel.

Denne kortfilmen regissert av Karl Stavem, om #Alzheimer og hvordan den påvirker familieforhold, er verdt å se. Med bl.a. Kari Simonsen, Mia Gundersen og Torunn Lødemel.

这部由 Karl Stavem 执导的关于#Alzheimer 及其对家庭关系的影响的短片值得一看。它由 Kari Simonsen、Mia Gundersen 和 Torunn Lødemel 主演。

Link to watch in facebook https://www.facebook.com/551629404/videos/pcb.10159599438214405/5580214332074386
Link to watch on line: https://videos.files.wordpress.com/VDsU0n1Z/stavem_hjem_draft_v1-1-1.mp4

The Norwegian National Anti-Alzheimer’s disease Network (No-AD), opened in 2020, warmly welcomes a new NO-AD co-coordinator Dr. Asgeir Kobro-Flatmoen from the Kavli institute in Trondheim, Norway.

Asgeir Kobro-Flatmoen, newly appointed Co-leader of the Jebsen Centre for Alzheimer’s disease at the Kavli institute in Trondheim, is now joining Evandro F. Fang (UiO) as co-coordinator for the NO-AD network. Kobro-Flatmoen does research on the neuroanatomy and cell-biology of Alzheimer’s disease, and discovered the unique vulnerability for a specific subset of neurons in entorhinal cortex layer II to the accumulation of amyloid-beta, namely the reelin-expressing projection neurons. His current work is centered on understanding how processes in these neurons may set off the disease-cascade.

As co-founding co-coordinator, Prof. Menno Witter has just retired from NTNU (See our recent news). We thank Prof. Witter for his life-long and instrumental contribution to neuroscience and his pioneering work in establishing the NO-AD network. Prof. Witter will be serving as Coordinator Emeritus to continually guide and support the NO-AD events and activities.

The NO-AD network is supported by the Nasjonalforeningen.

For news release or more information, please contact Dr. Asgeir Kobro-Flatmoen at asgeir.kobro-flatmoen@ntnu.no.

Image: from Nasjonalforeningen.

On 30 Nov 2022 in NTNU, Prof. Menno Witter’s current and former colleagues, collaborators, trainees, as well as his family and friends were joining together to celebrate the life-long contribution of Prof. Menno Witter’s contributions to science and higher education. The event entitled “An Entorhinal Episode in Norway” was helded in Øya Helsehus, Mauritz Hansens gate 2, 7030 Trondheim, Auditorium ØHA1: https://link.mazemap.com/GFLMKZwt.

The programme consists of
0930 – 1000 Coffee and Tea
1000 – 1025 Menno’s contributions to the KISN by Edvard Moser
1030 – 1050 Menno’s contribution to education and outreach by Jonathan Whitlock
1055 – 1115 Break
“The Next Generation” (10min talks)
1115 – 1125 Jørgen Sugar
1130 – 1140 Shinya Ohara
1145 – 1155 Asgeir Kobro-Flatmoen
1200 – 1300 Break
Invited speakers – (40/45min talks)
1300 – 1340 Lynn Nadel: Dialogues between Hippocampus and Neocortex: Talking in Circles?
1345 – 1425 Toshio Iijima: Studies of functional architecture of the entorhinal cortex enjoyed with Dr. Witter
1430 – 1450 Break
1450 – 1530 Richard Morris: Spatial and episodic-like representations: egocentric, path-navigation and allocentric
1535 – 1615 Carol Barnes: From anatomy to gastronomy: Inspirations from Menno Witter
1620 – 1645 Break
1645 – 1715 Future perspectives by Menno P. Witter
1715 – 1815 Optional mingling (with drinks and snacks)

The event was chaired by Witter’s long-term collaborator the Nobel Laureate Prof. May-Britt Moser and was opened by his another long-term collaborator the Nobel Laureate Prof. Edvard Moser. Witter’s trainees and long-term collaborators gave exciting talks on memory and the brain. At the end of Prof. Witter’s speech, all the audience spontaneously stood up and applauded him for over one minutes!

Thank you Prof. Menno Witter for your instrumental contribution in building our NO-AD network and on your continued support of the NO-AD activities.

Some pictures of the events are shown below (photos: Fang EF).

With the generous financial supports from the Nasjonalforeningen and from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants and the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic within the KAPPA Programme, the 2nd NO-AD International meeting was held on the 20th Oct 2021 in the Akershus University Hospital, Norway. This meeting had attracted close to 250 attendants, including 208 registered attendants via zoom and the remaining via physical attendance. The meeting was composed of 12 talks covering broad topics of the Alzheimer’s disease fields, including new molecular mechanisms of AD, the use of artificial intelligence in AD mechanistic studies and drug development, CRISPR- and gamma entrainment-based techniques on AD treatments, biomarker development for early stage of AD, and clinical treatments to AD patients. Our NO-AD international members Profs. Nancy Ip and Li-Huei Tsai were keynote speakers.

Link of the meeting: here

0:02:36 Nancy Ip (HKUST) ‘Biomarker development and genome-editing strategies for Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis and treatment’
1:08:45 Alejo J Nevado-Holgado (Oxford) ‘Artificial Intelligence in Drug Target Discovery for Alzheimer’s Disease’
1:38:49 Evandro Fang (Ahus, UiO) ‘Turning up the NAD⁺-mitophagy axis to treat Alzheimer’s disease and the use of AI in related drug development’
2:04:25 Linda Hildegard Bergersen (UiO) ‘Exercise and AD’
2:40:20 Katerina Cechova (CU): ‘Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in aging and Alzheimer disease’
2:58:27 Noel Buckley (Oxford) ‘Modelling Alzheimer’s in a dish – how far have we come?’ 

3:51:17 Martin Vyhnálek (CU) ‘Subjective cognitive complaints – part of normal ageing or the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease?’
4:25:45 Tormod Fladby (Ahus, UiO) ‘Challenges in early AD Diagnostics’
4:51:15 Jan Laczó (CU) ‘Spatial navigation in Alzheimer disease’
5:22:43 Liu Shi (Oxford) ‘Replication study of plasma biomarkers relating to Alzheimer’s pathology’ 
6:04:53 Domenica Caponio (UiO) ‘Changes of mitophagy in the AD human brain’
6:19:28 Li-Huei Tsai (MIT) ‘Non-invasive sensory stimulation to induce gamma entrainment and treat Alzheimer’s disease’

All slide images were from each speaker. Hiking images were from Evandro Fang

Date: 20^th October 2021 (08:15-17:00, Central European Time/CET)
Venue: Seminar room S104.016, Akershus University Hospital, Sykehusveien 25, 1478, Norway
Registration: Virtual attendance (via zoom with link for registration below) or physical attendance (registration at the end of this website, limited seats)
Programme: Download here (18th Oct 2021 version)
Organisers: Evandro Fei Fang (University of Oslo), Martin Vyhnálek (Charles University), Noel Buckley (University of Oxford), Janet Jianying Zhang (University of Oslo)

Event shown in the websites of UiO, Oxford, Charles University.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common dementia affecting 35-50 million individuals worldwide. Although it was discovered over 110 years ago, there is still no cure for AD despite decades of enormous effort. The big challenges right now are 1) the necessity for the unveiling of more of the molecular mechanisms leading to the development of AD; 2) creation of easily accessible and affordable approaches to identify individuals with early AD to facilitate earlier intervention and treatment; 3) strategies or treatments to delay, slow down or prevent AD are urgently needed; and 4) the necessity for accellerating the development of effective anti-AD drugs or therapies using modern techniques (e.g., CRISPR-Cas9 and artificial intelligence/AI). After the success of the 1st NO-AD meeting (website here and recorded videos here) on the 25^th Nov 2020, we are pleased to open the 2nd NO-AD meeting on the 20^th Oct. 2021 to be jointly organized by The University of Olso (UiO, Norway) and Akershus University Hospital (Ahus, Norway), The University of Oxford (Oxford, UK), and Charles University (CU, Czech Republic).

This one-day hybrid meeting (physical attendance + Zoom) will provide updates on all these important topics with talks by leading experts in their fields. We are very pleased to have two keynote speakers, Prof. Nancy Ip (HKUST, Hong Kong) and Prof. Li-Huei Tsai (MIT, USA) to open and close this one-day talk, respectively. Other speakers will be Associate Professor Alejo J. Nevado-Holgado (Oxford, UK), Associate Professor Evandro F. Fang (UiO/Ahus, Norway), Prof. Noel Buckley (Oxford, UK), Professor Linda Hildegard Bergersen (UiO/Ahus, Norway), Dr. Katerina Cechova (Charles University, Czech Republic), Associate Professor Martin Vyhnálek (Charles University, Czech Republic), Professor Tormod Fladby (UiO/Ahus, Norway), Prof. Jan Laczó (Charles University, Czech Republic), Dr. Liu Shi (Oxford, UK), and Dr. Domenica Caponio (UiO/Ahus, Norway).

Zoom registration (not for physical attendance): https://uio.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_y-GlyJ9_SVO_l6BGc1YwYA

Physical attendance: If you want to attend physically, please register at the end of this page. Note, due to the COVID-19 control, we only can fit 36 seats in the meeting room. First register first serve. We will send you an email 1-2 weeks before the meeting whether there is a seat for you or not.

Registration of this event: