EAN News

As every year, spring time is high season for preparing for the annual congress - this year the 4th congress of the European Academy of Neurology in Lisbon. It is the annual main event of our Society and we expect around 6000 participants in this special and historically attractive Portuguese capital. The congress has continuously adapted its profile and one of the main goals of our Society is to continuously develop new formats which satisfy the requests of modern neurology and its drivers, the European Neurologists. Our program committee under the leadership of Prof. Boon has excellently realized this request with many new innovations.

For May 2018, we have selected: Kappos L, Bar-Or A, Cree BAC, et al., for the EXPAND Clinical Investigators. Siponimod versus placebo in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (EXPAND): a double-blind, randomized, phase 3 study. Lancet Neurol 2018;391:1263-1273. Secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS) is characterized by a previous history of relapsing remitting MS (RRMS) and the continuous progression of disability over the years typically without relapses.

Portugal is a country with a 900-year history: many remnants of past colonization by Celtics, Romans, and Arabians are still present. Unquestionably, the greater contribution of Portugal to the humanity have been the overseas navigations around the world, namely the discovery of the maritime way to India, the discovery of Brazil and of several Atlantic islands.

Education is one of the key elements of the activities of the European Academy of Neurology. While the congress is well known to most of our members and European Neurologists the activities outside the congress are much less known. EAN has a special committee working on education[1] with Prof. Hannah Cock as the chair and the teaching course subcommittee under the leadership of Prof. Claudia Sommer. They are charged to develop an educational program including education for neurologists in training and advanced courses with the emphasis on training for the general neurologist. While the field of Neurology is getting increasingly broader it is of paramount importance to set a common ground for all neurologists which our education committee has carefully developed. For the congress educational programme, a five-year curriculum of the educational content covering all relevant topics has been developed over the past 3 years and parts of this plan are also applied to the educational activities outside the congress.

Prof. Wolfgang Oertel (WO): Dear Prof. Di Luca I congratulate you with your new position and kindly ask you to illustrate your plans for EBC’s strategy and work in the years to come. Prof. Monica Di Luca (MDL): Being elected as President of EBC is a great honour for me as well as an important challenge. This is an important era for EBC. Thanks to the excellent work of the past President David Nutt, the last 4 years witnessed the consolidation of our Council in the European scenario as the ideal platform where all voices related to brain research could find an interlocutor and could merge. We are now in the privileged position to start new projects and bring EBC to a next step.

History Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) is an autosomal dominant (AD) spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) initially described in descendants of immigrants from the Portuguese islands of the Azores. It was in 1972 that Kenneth K. Nakano and colleagues described the Machado family, with an AD, late onset, cerebellar ataxia with peripheral neuropathy. All family members were descendants from Guilherme Machado, who had migrated from São Miguel (Azores) to Massachusetts in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.

For April 2018, we have selected: Whelan CD, Altmann A, Botia JA, et al., for the ENIGMA-Epilepsy Working Group. Structural brain abnormalities in the common epilepsies assessed in a worldwide ENIGMA study. Brain 2018;141:391-408. Epilepsy affects 0.6-1.5% of the population worldwide with one-third of patients being resistant to antiepileptic treatment. Nowadays epilepsy is considered a network disorder in which several structural changes are involved.

Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a country in Central Europe. The total area of the Slovak territory is 49 036 km2 and is mostly mountainous. The population is over 5 million. The capital and largest city is Bratislava. However, the Slovak Republic is a young state (established on January 1st, 1993, by the split of Czechoslovakia), indeed it is an old country with rich historical heritage.

THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY PRESENTS ‘CHALLENGING THE GLOBAL BURDEN OF BRAIN DISEASE’, A COLLABORATION WITH ITN PRODUCTIONS In a unique communications partnership, European Academy of Neurology (EAN) and ITN Productions are producing a news and current affairs-style programme highlighting… Continue Reading

You can follow the announcement at: www.thebrainprize.org Four neuroscientists working in the UK, Belgium and Germany have today (6 March) won the world’s most valuable prize for brain research.   The 2018 Brain Prize is awarded to Bart De Strooper (London… Continue Reading

EAN signs a Memorandum of Understanding with Alzheimer Europe. Alzheimer Europe aims at  providing a voice to people with dementia and their carers, at making dementia a European priority and promote a rights-based approach to dementia. The organisation also supports… Continue Reading