News

Andreas Rett [1924-1997] The 50th anniversary of the first publication on Rett Syndrome by Andreas Rett is being celebrated  with an international conference RTT 50.1, from 15th to 17th September 2016  in the historic city of Vienna, home to Andreas Rett and 'birthplace' of Rett syndrome. RTT 50.1 is open to patients, clinicians, scientists, researchers and other healthcare...

Dear friends,  It is my pleasure to invite you to attend an International Symposium on "Is autism a treatable disorder"?. This satellite meeting for the ICNC 2016 will be held in Rome on April 29th 2016.  The aim of this Symposium is to allow basic neuroscientists working on autism research and clinicians to meet together and discuss new advances in biologically based treatments of autism spectrum disorders. The Symposium will review recent progresses on molecular understanding of pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorders and will discuss current and future approaches to treatment with a special focus on...

In their research "Impact of preterm birth on structural and functional connectivity in neonates" presented at the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) conference in Chicago, Oct 19, 2015, Cynthia Rogers and her colleagues at Washington University Neonatal Development Research Lab, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that key brain networks involved in attention, communication and emotion were weaker in premature infants, suggesting an explanation for why children born prematurely may have an increased risk of psychiatric disorders. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor brain imaging to compare 58 babies born...

In a study from UCLA published in the online issue of the peer-reviewed journal Brain and Behavior, Jann and colleagues have found that brain areas linked to social behaviors are both underdeveloped and insufficiently networked in youths with high functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to study participants without ASD.  The researchers used pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling with 3D background-suppressed GRASE, a novel MRI technique to assess resting cerebral blood flow (CBF) and functional connectivity (FC) in 17 youths with ASD and 22 matched typically developing (TD) children. A pattern of altered resting perfusion was found in...

It is with great sadness that the ICNA announce the death of Hanneke de Boer a great advocate for epilepsy not only in her native Netherlands, but all across the world. Hanneke had dedicated her entire professional life was dedicated towards improving the lives of people with epilepsy. Hanneke began her professional life as a vocational consultant at Stichting Epilepsie Instellingen Nederland (SEIN) in Heemstede, the Netherlands in 1965 and would continue to work there till the end. In her early years she worked to open career doors for people with epilepsy...

​The ICNA congratulates Professor Paolo Curatolo on receiving the  Manuel Gomez Award 2015 from the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance (TSA). This prestigious award has been given in honour of his pioneering efforts in improving the understanding and treatment of Tuberous Sclerosis. The award was given at the International Tuberous Sclerosis Conference held in Windsor, United Kingdom in September 2015. Professor Paolo Curatolo is currently the Director, Pediatric Neuroscience Unit"Tor Vergata" University Hospital,Rome, Italy and has been the President of the International Child Neurology Association from 2002-2006. Besides numerous publications on the topic, he is also the author of "Tuberous Sclerosis Complex: from basic...

Jean Aicardi was arguably the greatest child neurologist of the modern era, an internationally renowned French child neurologist who wrote his textbooks in English. His name will live on in the two separate conditions that he described—Aicardi syndrome and Aicardi-Goutières syndrome (AGS). His name will also live on through his several textbooks, all written in English, and through his friends, colleagues, and pupils (over 100 fellows trained with him) throughout the world. Most of his work was done in Paris, but in later years he also held posts in Miami, Florida (as Visiting Scientist), at the Institute of Child...

The spread of scientific and clinical child neurological knowledge and expertise among the congress participants from all different backgrounds has been an important priority for the Educational Committee of ICNC 2016. For this reason we offer an extensive, high level, innovative and complimentary teaching program.  The teaching program consists of daily breakfast courses that introduce and refresh the knowledge on the leading topic of the day. Topics are related to the important CNS neuroanatomical structure and its most relevant disorders. They are: Grey matter on Monday, White matter on Tuesday, Cerebellum on Wednesday and Muscle and Peripheral...

A new animal study shows that traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects the body as well as the brain and that treatment with angiotensin II receptor blocker antihypertensive drugs block the production of mediators of inflammation. In the study, published online today in The American Journal of Pathology, the Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) research team reveals for the first time that experimental traumatic brain injury results in a systemic inflammatory response primarily in the liver....

A study recently published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics by Marni J. Falk and colleagues from the Mitochondrial-Genetic Disease Clinic at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) holds great promise for developing new treatments for patients with mitochondrial disorders Extra-mitochondrial mechanisms including dysregulated translation and the increased autophagy contribute to the pathophysiology of respiratory chain disorders. They showed that drugs which partially inhibit these cellular processes offer novel treatment strategies in mitochondrial disorders.  In translation, messenger RNA (mRNA) which is produced by transcription from DNA is decoded by cellular ribosomes to produce...