by Gian Luigi Lenzi on behalf of the Neuropenews Editorial Board
It is customary for the Editorial Board of Neuropenews to wish all our readers a very Joyful Christmas Holiday and a Healthy and Happy New Year.
Allow Neuropenews to recall that both these Holiday celebrations go back many centuries B.C., and therefore may clearly indicate how human beings were already well aware of the relevance of celebrating the end of the declining sun and the beginning of longer days. Both these celebrations were dedicated to the increase of sunlight.
It follows that the direct positive impact of solar photons on cerebral serotonin levels was “discovered” millennia ahead of recent biological data on the…. mouse. Allow NeuropeNews to recall that the Holiday season is also a time when family and friends get together, stressing again that solitude and social isolation are not good for the human brain.
And, yes, the European Neurological world and NeuropeNews, and also our families, friends, acquaintances, neighbours, towns, countries, are celebrating the end of the “old” 2014 and the beginning of the “new” 2015; New Year, new hopes, new goals!
In many cultures this NEW beginning is celebrated by throwing out something old, a symbol of leaving behind the old year. Goodbye to hopes unfulfilled, problems unresolved, disasters still hanging over…and Hopes for a better, less dramatic, less problematic 2015!
However, specifically for European Neurology this discarding of the “old” 2014 is not applicable: in fact, for European Neurology, the year 2014 was a good year! We completed, in June 2014, the fusion of two European Neurological Societies: a major achievement, EAN was born!
Many opportunities for the future of European Neurology will be remembered as having been created in 2014! And, in the meantime while we wish much more to come in 2015 for Neurology, Neurological Sciences, Clinical Neurology and everything labelled NEURO, we acknowledge that the 2015 achievements will be helped by the positive neuro-momentum obtained in 2014.
2014 has left our serotoninergic levels higher than the previous winters.
Perhaps, someone may feel this view slightly “neuro-parochial”, but we like to think that this is a common feeling in our European neurological brotherhood.
Let us toast to the successful future of 2015, while bidding a fond farewell to the past, good, old 2014.
CHEERS!
