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Nominations and Elections Committee members and President-elect The mandate of three committee members –Verity Brown, Leonardo Chelazzi and Joe Huston – will expire this year at the EBBS business Meeting in Dublin. Also, the recently elected member Melly Oitzl will replace the treasurer Albert Gramsbergen thus leaving a seat at the committee vacant. Therefore, four new officers have to be elected. There have been six nominations for the committee. Katharina Braun, Germany Carmen Cavada, Spain Francesca Cirulli, Italy Steve J. Cooper, U.K. Bruno Poucet, France Fotini Stylianopoulou, Greece The mandate of the President, John Aggleton will expire next year at the FENS Meeting in Vienna and a new President-elect has to be chosen. Two candidates have been nominated: Giorgio Innocenti, Sweden Hans-Otto Karnath, Germany
The autobiographical sketches of the candidates are below.
Candidates for the committee:
The research of Katharina Braun focuses on the ontogeny of emotional and cognitive behavior and the underlying neuronal and molecular mechanisms in the limbic system. She studied biology, chemistry and psychology at the Technical University in Darmstadt, Germany, where she received her diploma in zoology on a study on acoustic filial imprinting in guinea chicks. In 1986 she received her PhD in Zoology for her thesis work on neuronal plasticity involved in song learning in zebra finches. In 1989-1991, funded by fellowships from the German Science Foundation, she conducted postdoctoral research projects at the University of Washington/Health Science Center, Seattle in collaboration with Phillip Schwartzkroin/Department of Neurosurgery and Edwin Rubel/Department of Otolaryngology. Awarded with a von Helmholtz-fellowship by the German government (BMBF) she started in 1993 an independent research group at the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology/Center for Learning and Memory Research in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1999 she was awarded a fellowship from the Hanse Institute for Advanced Study in Delmenhorst, Germany, and 2001 she was appointed as full professor in Zoology and Developmental Neurobiology at the Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg, where she is now the director of the Institute of Biology. In 2001 she was elected vice president of the German Neuroscience Society, in 2004 she became board member of the International Society of Developmental Psychobiology and in 2005 she received the Morris & Helen Belkin Professorship at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Her current research interests include the ontogeny of emotionally modulated juvenile learning events, the development of filial attachment, and the identification of epigenetic factors inducing “abnormal” development of behavior and of synaptic connections in limbic brain circuits. Her research team investigates mechanisms of information processing and storage at the cellular and synaptic level in the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system using a variety of methods in quantitative morphology (light-, confocal- and electron-microscopy), functional imaging (2FDG, immunocytochemical detection of immediate early genes and transcription factors), in vivo microdialysis and behavioural pharmacology.
Carmen Cavada is Professor of Human Anatomy and Neuroscience at the Medical School of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM). She obtained her Medical Degree at the University of Bilbao in 1979, then her Doctoral Degree at UAM (1982-1983). From 1984 to 1986 she got a Postdoctoral training at the Department of Neuroanatomy, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, then a Fogarty Fellowship from NIH. Section of Neurobiology, Yale University (April-May 2002). She has also been appointed Senior Visiting Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies, at the University of Bologna. Her scientific interest deals with studies of neural connections in the mammalian brain, focussing mostly in association cortical areas and the thalamus of non-human primates. At present she is studying the catecholaminergic innervation of the primate thalamus, with a main interest in dopamine, and is engaged in projects aiming at generating and evaluating primate models of Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. She has been member of the Council of the Spanish Society for Neuroscience and Secretary of this Society from 1995 to 1997. In 1998, she has been nominated Member of the Program Committee of the 1st Forum of European Neuroscience Societies hold in Berlin, and, in 2004, member of the Scientific Committee of the XI Meeting of the Spanish Society for Neuroscience.
Steve J. Cooper is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Kissileff Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive in the School of Psychology, University of Liverpool. He was educated in the University of Manchester and took his PhD in psychopharmacology in the University of London. For his research, he was awarded DSc degrees by the Universities of Birmingham and Manchester, respectively, and was awarded a Honorary Doctorate by the University of Orebro (Sweden) in 2002, and was elected a Fellow of The Linnean Society of London in 2003. He is a Fellow of the British Psychologial Society and of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society. He has held academic positions in Queen's University Belfast and in the University of Birmingham. He was promoted to professor at Birmingham in 1991, and became professor and head of department in the University of Durham in 1994, and was similarly appointed in the University of Liverpool in 1998. He has served as secretary of the Psychology Section (J) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as a Council member of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, as a member of the Board of Directors of Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, as a European Councilor on the Board of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, as a member of the Scientific Union Committee of the Royal Society, and has chaired the Research Board of the British Psychological Society, which awards the prestigious Spearman Medals and Presidents' Awards. He was European Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (1994-2001), Executive editor of Neuropharmacology, and has served on the editorial boards of Appetite, Behavioral Pharmacology, European J. of Pharmacology Human Psychopharmacology, Physiology & Behavior, Psychopharmacology, and TIPS. He is currently an Associate Editor of Neuroscience Letters. He has edited 12 multi-author books, and is working on a 13th dealing with appetite and anti-obesity drugs. He has published about 250 book chapters and journal articles, mainly in the field of the psychopharmacology of appetite and palatability, with particular emphasis on benzodiazepines, opioids and dopamine. He is currently researching anti-obesity drug action in obese patients.
Francesca Cirulli is a researcher at the Behavioral Neurosciences Unit, Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy. In 1998, she was awarded by a Fulbright Fellowship to perform graduate research at the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medecine (Ca, USA). Under the supervision of Prof. Seymour Levine, she first obtained her Master Degree in Biological Sciences. Between 1989 and 1994, she returned to Stanford Medical School where she joined the Neuroscience Program, earning her Ph.D. in Neurosciences (2000). After returning to the Istituto Superiore della Sanità, together with E. Alleva, she has been collaborating with the Laboratory of Neurobiology (National Research Council) headed by L. Aloe and R. Levi-Montalcini. Her researches focuses on the role of early experiences on CNS plasticity underlying cognitive and emotional behaviour. Original approaches to the study of these research questions include the development of novel techniques of early behavioural phenotyping of rodents to investigate early changes in the mother-infant relationship as welll as animal models of psychological stress to assess changes in cognitive and emotional behavior as the result of early adverse experiences. She has established numerous collaborations with research groups both in Europe and in the Unites States. She is a member of a number of Scientific Societies including ISDP, ISPNE, and the SFN, and has recently become a member of the EBBS.
Bruno Poucet obtained his PhD in 1982. He then did postdoctoral research with Prof. T. Herrmann at University of Guelph (Canada) and Prof. P. Ellen at Georgia State University (USA). He got a researcher position at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1985. Since the beginning of his career, his main research interest has been concerned with the neural substrates of spatial cognition. Though mainly focused on the behavioural aspects of spatial navigation and memory as well on path-finding, his recent research has focused on the properties of single cell firing in behaving animals. For example, his group studied hippocampal place cell firing while a rat solved various spatial tasks and demonstrated the existence of a specific relationship between place fields and spatial behaviour when a place strategy was required for successful performance. Another purpose of his recent research was to determine the sensory information that triggers the activity of place cells as well as the contribution of neocortical areas to both spatial behaviour and place cell activity. He was co-organizer of the joint meeting of the EBBS and EBPS that was held in Marseille in 2001. Since 2002, he heads the laboratory of Neurobiology and Cognition in Marseille. He is the author of about 60 research articles. Currently member of the editorial board of Hippocampus, he is also the editor-in-chief of Current Psychology of Cognition since 1999.
Fotini Stylianopoulou was born in Athens, Greece in 1948. She obtained her PhD in Neuro- and Biobehavioural Sciences from Stanford University, USA, in 1976, and has been a professor of biology in the University of Athens since 1985. She is among the first faculty members to teach Neuroscience at the graduate level and a pioneer in initiating research in Behavioral Neuroscience in Greece. She is a founding member of the Hellenic Society for Neuroscience and presently its president; she also organized three of the societies annual meetings (1988, 1997, 2003). Her research interests are in the area of cellular mechanisms underlying neuronal plasticity (using rodents as experimental animals), including sexual differentiation of the brain and the neurobiology of stress, particularly the effects of early experiences in programming adult behavior. During the last 3-4 years she has extended her interest to cellular mechanisms of learning and memory. Her research group employs a variety of experimental approaches ranging from molecular biology to behaviour. She has supervised 19 PhD theses, all with topics in Neuroscience, and is an author of many articles in international scientific journals, as well as of translations of scientific books in Greek. She has received both national and international awards for her research. Since many years she is a member of the EBBS.
Candidates President-elect:
Giorgio M Innocenti is Italian and completed his medical degree and a specialization in neurology and psychiatry at Turin University. He has held full-time academic positions in Italy (1968-1974) and Switzerland (1974-1997) and temporary positions at Max Planck in Göttingen, Germany, Instituto de Neuroscientia of Alicante in Spain, Georgetown University in USA and Instituto de Biophysica de Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Since 1997 he is Professor in Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He is affiliated to European Brain and Behaviour Society, European Neuroscience Association, International Brain Research Organization, Society for Neuroscience (USA), International Neuropsychological Symposium, Fondation Rodin, Società italiana di Fisiologia. He has served in the Organizing committee of the European Winter Conference on Brain Research (since 1985), Council of the European Neuroscience Association; panel: Developmental Neurobiology (1990-1996), Treasurer of the European Neuroscience Association (1990-1996), Member of Council of the Swiss Society of Neuroscience (1995-1998), President of the Rodin Remediation Academy (since 1997),Chairman of the School Committee, Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (2002-2006), Member of Executive Council and Council of Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (2002-2006). He has been Receiving Editor of: European Journal of Neuroscience (1995-2002). Member of the Editorial Board of: Behavioural Brain Research (1981-1983), Developmental Neuroscience (1988-1993), Comments on Developmental Neurobiology (1988-1992), Developmental Brain Research (since 1981), Experimental Brain Research (since 1989), Neural Plasticity (since 1989), Cerebral Cortex (since 1991), European Journal for Neuroscience (since 1993). GMI is interested in the organization, development and developmental plasticity of Cerebral Cortex, with focus on inter-hemispheric interactions, and cortico-cortical connectivity. He has published 87 scientific papers, in refereed journals, 49 invited papers or chapters and edited 4 books or special issues. He is credited for discovering the overproduction of long axonal projections in cortical development. The finding has crucial implication for the mechanisms of cortical developmental pathology, plasticity and cortical evolution. GMI’s research is characterized by multidisciplinarity and animal-to-man translation. With his collaborators he has used mainly anatomical and electrophysiological, but also behavioral, molecular and computational techniques to animal studies. In recent years he has successfully applied concepts issued from animal work to studies in children, using structural and functional MRI, EEG and neuropsychological testing, usually combined, in normal individuals and patients with developmental pathologies of the cerebral cortex.
Hans-Otto Karnath is a professor of Neurology and Neuropsychology at the University in Tübingen, Germany. He directs the Neuropsychology Section at the Department of Cognitive Neurology and the Hertie-Institute for Clinical Brain Research. He received a Ph.D. in psychology in 1989, and an M.D. in medicine in 1992. Before his residency and clinical work as a neurologist, he did postdoctoral studies at the University of Aachen (Germany) and the University of Freiburg (Germany), where he focused on attention and the dysexecutive syndrome that occurs with frontal lobe damage. At present, his research concerns disorders such as spatial neglect, extinction, defects of visuomotor interaction, visual perception and of postural control. He is a member of the International Neuropsychological Symposium and has received several academic awards for his research. Between 2000 and 2003 he has been member of the scientific committee of the European Brain and Behaviour Society and has organized two EBBS workshops on cognitive neuroscience topics.
All the best, Martine Ammassari-Teule EBBS Secretary
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