"research fellowship report"

I would like to report on the 6 months that I spent at the centre of dizziness and balance disorders in the Neurology Department (Head: Professor Dr. Thomas Münte) at the University Hospital of Schleswig Holstein in Lübeck, Germany, as a fellow in the Educational Fellowship Programme of the European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS). Professor Christoph Helmchen, the head of the centre of dizziness and balance disorders in Lübeck, was my tutor during this period and I had the chance to join his research group.

My research project was performed at the University of Glasgow, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, UK in the laboratory chaired by Professor Hugh Willison.

Through the EFNS fellowship, I was able to carry out my project “Cerebral ischaemia measured using MRI spectroscopy (cerebral ischaemia study)” at the Acute Stroke research unit, Western Infirmary, Glasgow, UK chaired by Prof. Kennedy Lees. Doing this research from an interdisciplinary perspective has been a novel approach and I’m grateful I was able to begin my involvement with EFNS Scientific Fellowship at this stage in my career.

For a period of 6 months, supported by the EFNS educational fellowship, I spent an amazing and enriching period of my life at the Child Neurology Department, Hospital San Joan De Deu, Barcelona, Spain, with Dr. A. Garcia Cazorla’s research team.

I have had the great honor of being one of the neurologists selected by the EFNS Training and Education Committee for the 2012 Scientific Fellowship. I have spent a year in the Neurology Department of the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.

I had the unique chance of being one of the young neurologists chosen by the EFNS Education Committee to perform a 6-month educational program in the National Reference Centre for Neuromuscular Disease (Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, Institut de Myologie, Paris, France) under the supervision of Professor Jean-Marc Léger.

Through the support of the EFNS Scientific Fellowship I had the opportunity to work between June 2011 and May 2012 in Lille, France joining the Stroke group chaired by Prof. Didier Leys. During the fellowship my research focused on the occurrence of seizures after an intracerebral haemorrhage.

Immunological features of late-onset myasthenia (LOMG) in comparison to early-onset myasthenia (EOMG).

In 2011, I got the unique chance to carry out a project investigating changed pain inhibition with patients with complex regional pain syndrome at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany supported by the EFNS scientific fellowship.

The problem of multiple sclerosis demands a multidisciplinary approach, so my clinical and research work made me face a lot of its serious issues: epidemiology, neurogenetics, neuroimmunology, diagnostics, treatment, rehabilitation, and social care.

In the last six months, the EFNS Scientific Fellowship programme gave me the opportunity to work as visiting scientist in the Laboratory for Molecular Neurology, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Orhan Aktas, at the Department of Neurology of the Heinrich-Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany, chaired by Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Hartung.

Neuromuscular diseases did always grab my attention during my residency. Due to the rising importance of skin biopsy and its usefulness in the diagnosis of vasculitic neuropathy as well as small fiber neuropathy, I aimed to study in this field. As in my thesis I studied the activation of RAGE pathway in vasculitic neuropathy, axonal neuropathy and hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsy patients’ nerve biopsies I decided to extend my research by analyzing this pathway in the skin samples of different neuropathies.

Final Report by Kristiina Rannikmae With the support of the EFNS Scientific Fellowship, I spent 12 months at the Division of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Edinburgh, UK. I joined the Stroke Research Group and was supervised by Dr Cathie Sudlow,… Continue Reading