Newcastle University

The Institute of Neuroscience has added a suite of new custom built laboratories to the existing Henry Wellcome Building. This was made possible as in June 2010 the Institute of Neuroscience was successful in obtaining a capital award from the Wellcome Trust. In addition the extension also houses the Reece Foundation Laboratories for Translational Systems Neuroscience, as well as a laboratory equipped through a donation from the Henry and Krystyna Wisniewski Foundation.

Construction started in January 2012 and now finally the laboratories are starting to come online. In order to celebrate this accomplishment the Institute held an academic symposium on Translational Neuroscience. Speakers included Professors Alex Thiele, Tim Griffiths, Janet Eyre and Stuart Baker all members of the Institute of Neuroscience to enlighten the audience of the fantastic work already taking place at Newcastle. We were also fortunate to welcome Nikos Logothetis Director of the Department of Physiology of Cognitive Processes at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen. The final speaker of the day was Leigh Hochberg Professor of Engineering, Brown University, and Associate Director, Center for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology, Rehabilitation Research, who presented the Faculty of Medical Sciences - Institute of Neuroscience Annual Lecture for 2014. 

After the symposium the centre was officially opened by Lord Walton of Detchant, whose illustrious neurology career included 10 years as the Dean of Medicine at Newcastle (1971-81). In 1989 he was made a life peer and is an ardent campaigner for medical research in the House of Lords. Before unveiling the plaque Lord Walton eloquently appraised the talks from the symposium and marvelled at the great advances in medical treatments that have taken place since he began his medical training in 1941.

After the formalities were concluded the directors of the Institute Professors Anya Hurlbert and Colin Ingram invited everyone to look around the new laboratories where IoN members were on hand with demonstrations offering insights into the work being done. For instance Dr Chris Petkov showed the MRI simulator which will allow people to prepare for the experience of undergoing a real MRI scan which can be a daunting experience due to the loud noise of a real scanner and the cramped space around the head. Dr Andrew Jackson also demonstrated his groups myoelectric-controlled interfaces which in the future could be used to control prosthetic limbs and rehabilitation after injuring the nervous system.   

For those who couldn't attend here is a brief round-up of the symposium. 
The symposium began with Professor Nikos Logothetis highlighting some recent work that been produced from his exciting Department of Physiology of Cognitive Processes at the Max-Planck-Institute in Tübingen. Using Neural-event-triggered-fMRI in awake and anaesthetised monkeys, Prof. Logothetis’ group have uncovered fascinating insights into how episodic memories may be encoded. Using a type of neuronal oscillation (known as sharp wave-ripple complexes) as a clue to memory consolidation, his talk showed that the hippocampus and the cortices (with the exception of primary visual cortex) increased in activity during memory consolidation, while subcortical structures decreased. This insight supports the role of as sharp wave-ripples as a signal which is involved in the consolidation of episodic memories.
In a wonderfully succinct and clear talk, Professor Alex Thiele presented data showing the importance of acetylcholine in the processing of attention. An interesting dichotomy was found between the frontal eye field and primary visual cortex, both of which use acetylcholine to mediate attention based enhancement of neuronal firing rate and fidelity, but each area uses a different receptor class to mediate these effects. Prof. Thiele used this elegant example of dichotomies in neuronal processing between brain regions to underline the difficulties in developing pharmacological therapies to treat maladies of the brain.
Professor Tim Griffiths gave a whistle-stop tour of some aspects of auditory processing in the brain. Beginning in the subcortical inferior colliculus, he presented data proving that the spectral and temporal domains are mapped in an orthogonal manner, allowing for higher level processing of these auditory cues in the cortex. Within the auditory cortex, we heard about an area along rostral Heschl’s gyrus which is specialised for the processing of pitch. This important work had set a platform upon which Prof. Griffiths’ group are investigating disorders of the auditory system such as tinnitus and musical hallucinations.
Rehabilitation from stroke was the focus of Professor Janet Eyre’s enlightening talk. She presented data from a novel computer game treatment which is being developed to aid patients with hemiparesis – a decrement in the ability to move one side of the body, which affects the vast majority of stroke patients. Ensuring patients continue their rehabilitation exercise is essential in the long term following stroke. Prof. Eyre’s work appears to offer a cost effective and exciting means of improving the outcomes victims of stroke.
After a swift coffee break, Professor Stuart Baker held the audience captive with a talk that exemplified clarity and scholarship. The focus was a series of studies which have investigated the nature of the reticulo-spinal tract in the motor system. The well-studied cortico-spinal tract allows information in the cortex to pass directly to the spinal cord and is a more recent evolutionary development in primates. However Prof. Baker provided convincing evidence that the more phylogenetically ancient reticulo-spinal tract is also essential to normal function of the spinal cord. This work is compelling as it may provide a means by which patients who have been paralysed due to a lesion of the pyramidal tract, can receive therapy that may one day allow them to move again.
The plenary lecture was given by Dr. Leigh Hochberg of the Center for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology at Brown University. As the symposium was held to celebrate the opening of the new Centre for Translational Systems Neuroscience, Dr. Hochberg began a humorous and poignant talk by stressing that his translational research could not have existed without the preceding fifty years of basic research which has illuminated our knowledge of the motor systems of the brain. Dr. Hochberg’s work has been to develop a brain-machine interface - a device which takes signals from the brain and translates them into a useful output from an instrument. This research has been brilliantly employed to develop a means by which quadriplegic patients can move robotic devices, such as using arm, which allowed one patient to take a drink of her own volition for the first time in over 15 years. Dr. Hochberg’s talk was enticing and highly enjoyable and his work promises to make a major leap forward in modern neuroscience – a thoroughly fitting way to end a superb symposium.