PRESIDENT

Dr. Youssef Anouar

Dr Youssef Anouar is past-President of the French Society of Neuroendocrinology and the present President of the Mediterranean Neuroscience Society. He is a Research Director at INSERM, the French institute of Health and biomedical research, and Chief, Section on Neuroendocrine Plasticity and Pathophysiology, INSERM U1239, University of Rouen Normandie. He has much experience in service to scientific community with Editorial Board service at Antioxidant and Redox Signaling, J Mol Neuroscience, Frontiers of Physiology, Frontiers of Endocrinology/Neuroendocrine section; Frontiers of Chemistry; As a neuroscientist of INSERM from the South-Mediterranean area, and working in a European country for many years after few years spent in NIH, USA, he came to meet many scientists interested in the wonderful world of Neuroscience in Mediterranean countries. He organized or participated to the organization of several meetings (Mediterranean Neuroscience Conference, the French Society of Neuroendocrinology meeting, The International Chromaffin Cell Biology meeting, The International Conference on Neuroendocrinology, RegPep, , etc), with the aim to make scientists from different geographic areas, including less-favored countries, work together and contribute to the major findings made in Neuroscience.

PAST PRESIDENT

Dr. Christina Dalla

Dr. Christina Dalla is Professor of Pharmacology at the Medical School, 2nd Department of Obstetrics – Gynecology, Aretaieio Hospital of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, past-President of the Mediterranean Neuroscience Society, President of the Hellenic Brain Council and past-President of the Hellenic Society for Neurosciences. She is also chair of the Communication Committee of the Federation of European neuroscience Societies/FENS and member of the FENS Executive Committee. She is member of the board of directors of the Hellenic association of University Women (ELEGYP) and serves as a member of the Gender Equality Committee of her University. She is co-chair of the event’s working group at ALBA Network: towards diversity and equity in brain sciences, section-editor at European Journal of Neuroscience and member of the Educational and Scientific Committees of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology-ECNP. She is an active member of the ECNP Psychedelics Network and Preclinical Data Network Forum. She also serves at committees at the National Medicines Association of Greece (EOF) and the Ministry of Health. She regularly serves as an external expert evaluator at the European Union Research Ethics and Integrity Unit. Her work focuses on sex differences in neuropsychiatric disorders and novel treatments with a focus on depression and anxiety. Dr. Dalla received her first diploma from the Pharmacy School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2000 and continued her studies in Neuropsychopharmacology, Behavioral Neuroendocrinology and Neurosciences in Athens, at the University of Liege in Belgium and at the Rutgers University of New Jersey, U.S.A. with two European Union Marie Curie Fellowships. She has received numerous awards and distinctions, such as the “L’Oreal-Unesco” for Greek Women in Science and the ECNP fellowship award. Finally, she is actively participating in public activities for brain awareness, such as publishing of books for the public.

http://psychopharmacology.med.uoa.gr
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jnr.24602

VICE-PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENT ELECT

Pr. Olfa Masmoudi-Kouki

Prof. Olfa Masmoudi-Kouki is Full Professor of Cellular and Molecular Neurosciences at the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, University of Tunis El Manar, and Head of the Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Cellular Pathophysiology and Biomolecules Valorization (LR18ES03) since 2017. She obtained her Maîtrise des Sciences Naturelles from the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis in 1998, then joined the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neuroendocrinology (INSERM U413, University of Rouen, France) in 2000. She completed her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Rouen in 2005, focusing on the regulation of endozepine expression and release by the neuropeptides PACAP and somatostatin in cultured rat astrocytes. In 2002, she was recruited as Assistant Professor at the University of Tunis El Manar, where she was promoted to Full Professor of Cell Biology and Neuroscience in 2016. Her research explores the role of neuropeptides in neuronal plasticity, cell death, and neuroprotection, particularly in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders and in the context of environmental toxicology. Her laboratory is among the few in the region specializing in primary neural cell cultures, experimental models of neurodegeneration, and cellular and molecular neurotoxicology. Prof. Masmoudi-Kouki has published extensively in international peer-reviewed journals and coordinated several national and international collaborative projects, including PHC-Utique (Campus France), Erasmus+, IBRO, Marie Skłodowska-Curie H2020-MSCA, and the NeuroBridge programs. She has also received support from international organizations to develop neuroscience training in North Africa, with a focus on capacity building for young researchers. She is the local coordinator of the Euro-Mediterranean Master in Neuroscience (EMN), fostering student mobility and interdisciplinary education across the Mediterranean. She is an active member of several scientific societies, including the Mediterranean Neuroscience Society (MNS), International Society of Bioactive Peptides (ISBP), International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN), Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS), the Tunisian Association of Laboratory Animal Sciences (ATSAL), and the Euro-African Association of Environment (AEAE).

GENERAL SECRETARY

Luisa Pinto

Luisa Pinto (PhD) has graduated in Biochemistry by the University of Coimbra and performed an internship at the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) on therapeutic tools for Parkinson’s Disease. She obtained a PhD in Neurosciences by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany) in 2008, under the supervision of Dr. Magdalena Goetz, and did then post-doctoral research in the lab of Prof. Nuno Sousa, at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), University of Minho (Portugal). She is currently an Assistant Researcher with tenure and team coordinator of the “Brain circuits and neuron-glia adaptations” thematic line at ICVS, focusing on novel therapeutics for Depression and Neurodegenerative Disorders. She is also an Invited Assistant Professor at the School of Medicine, University of Minho, and member of the Direction of ICVS as elected representative of the team coordinators of the Institute. Luisa Pinto is CEO of a start-up company “BNML – Behavioural & Molecular Lab” and co-founder Member of the European College of NeuroPsychopharmacolgy (ECNP) Thematic Network on Resilience. Research skills cover stem cell biology; assessment of neuroplastic events; behavioral tests; electrophysiological techniques; stem cell cultures and pre-clinical animal models. She authored and co-authored over 70 scientific publications, cited above 2500 times.

VICE-SECRETARY

Viviana Trezza

Viviana Trezza is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Department of Science at Roma Tre University, Rome. She leads the Pharmacology Laboratory as Group Leader and serves as Director of the Master in Pharmacy program. She earned her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology at Sapienza University of Rome and subsequently spent five years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience in the Netherlands, where she gained extensive expertise in behavioral neuroscience. Her research focuses on uncovering the brain mechanisms that regulate socio-emotional behavior and cognition, both in normal development and in neurodevelopmental disorders. The long-term goal of her work is to identify novel pharmacological targets for conditions characterized by impaired socio-emotional and cognitive processing, with particular emphasis on Autism Spectrum Disorder and Fragile X Syndrome. A central theme of her research, originating from her doctoral studies, is the role of the endocannabinoid system in shaping emotional and cognitive functions across development. More recently, she has advanced an integrative framework showing how multiple neurotransmitter systems interact across distributed brain circuits to influence socio-emotional and cognitive processes. By identifying key mechanisms within these systems, her work contributes to understanding the neurobiological basis of developmental psychiatric disorders and their aberrant behavioral traits.

TREASURER

Philippe De Deurwaerdere

Philippe De Deurwaerdere is full professor of Neuroscience at the University of Bordeaux, France. He did his Ph. D in Bordeaux, where he studied the influence of serotonin on the release of dopamine within the striatum and the nucleus accumbens in rats. He obtained his Ph. D in December 1997 and then joined the lab of Prof Marie-Françoise Chesselet in the Reed Neurological Center at UCLA, Los Angeles as post-doctoral fellow. He studied the influence of 5-HT2C receptors in the basal ganglia of naïve and hemiparkinsonian rats.
His was appointed at the University of Bordeaux in 2000 as Maître de Conférences and became Professor in 2011. He is now co-team leader at the INCIA institute in the University of Bordeaux. His current research focuses on the neurochemical organization of monoamines across the CNS at rest and in response to various conditions including L-DOPA, pesticides, environmental novelty, and psychedelic drugs.
He is associate or senior editor of several neurobiology journals. He is currently launching a technical plateau for neurochemistry at the University of Bordeaux.

ALL COUNCILORS

Eleonora Palma is full Professor of Physiology at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She received her PhD in Biophysics from Sapienza University of Rome and she was a postdoctoral fellow and assistant researcher at Hôpital Cantonal de Genève, University of Geneva (Switzerland), Department of Physiology. She was also a research fellow of Grass Foundation (Woods Hole, Boston, USA) and a Telethon Foundation Fellow for three years. Prof. Palma had a long-lasting collaboration with Irvine University (CA, USA) where she has been several times as visiting Professor. More recently, she is collaborating with Amsterdam University, Netherlands and with Istituto M. Negri in Italy especially on the study of the role of neuroinflammation in human and experimental epilepsies. Indeed, her research is mostly focused on the GABAergic and glutamatergic dysfunction in human drug-resistant epilepsies using different electrophysiological and molecular approaches. In 2014, one of her paper, Roseti et al., has been awarded with the prestigious Morris-Coole Award (ILAE). Recently, she also focused her interest on the alteration of synaptic mechanisms in human epilepsies particularly with regard to rare pediatric diseases. Thanks to the collaboration with clinicians, she started also to work on the involvement of nicotinic receptors in the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease progression investigating the role of the muscle in ALS neurodegeneration.

Eva de Lago Femia is Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine at Complutense University of Madrid where she is also Director of the Neurochemistry University Institute of UCM. She is interested in the study of the changes that occur in elements of the endocannabinoid system in several neurodegenerative diseases, mainly in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia, using both experimental models (cellular or in vivo) and patients’ samples. Her aim is to identify targets of this system that could be used for neuroprotective treatments and to study the molecular and/or cellular mechanisms through which they could exert this type of effect. She is member of the Spanish society for research on cannabinoids (SEIC) and the Center for Biomedical Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases Network (CIBERNED). She is also involved in outreach activities, e.g., creating an open course about neurodegenerative disorders and disseminating research to the public using social media.

Francisco Eliseo Olucha Bordonau is Full Professor in Human Anatomy and Embryology at the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) in Castellón SPAIN. Along my scientific carrier I have participated in many articles focused on neuroanatomy, first in comparative neuroanatomy and finally in functional neuroanatomy combining classical tracing and cytoarchitectonic with biochemical, electrophysiological and biotechnological approaches. The present focus is the brainstem control of cognition and emotion centered on the role of the nucleus incertus and the neuropeptides like relaxin3 in modulating emotional and affective behavior, specially contextual fear conditioning and social recognition. We have participated in regional, national and European projects and now a new focus is added on the impact of pollution on neural function. Now I am directing the Doctorate Program on Biomedical Sciences at UJI.

Dr. Ioannis Sotiropoulos is a Researcher C - Group leader at the Institute of Biosciences & Applications, NCSR "Demokritos", Greece. His research work focuses on understanding the orchestrating role of environmental risk factors (e.g., chronic, lifetime stress) on the onset of Alzheimer´s disease (AD) with a specific focus on the relationship between AD and depression, a stress-related disorder. Combining cell-, animal- and human-based studies, Dr. Sotiropoulos' innovative work aims to clarify the diverse factors that regulate the cellular role of Tau as a key molecule of neuroplasticity and neuropathology while his recent work focuses on exosomes as both mediators of brain pathology and potent biomarkers. He has previously trained and worked at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry (Germany), Columbia University (USA), RIKEN-Brain Science Institute (Japan), University College London (UCL) & MRC Center for Synaptic Plasticity (UK), and Medical School of University of Minho (Portugal). He has received different prizes & awards e.g., Hirnliga Alzheimer Award 2009, AD/PD Young Faculty 2014 Award, Jerome Lejeune 2017 Award, Janssen Innovation Award 2017, Alzheimer Association Award for Best Mentor in Neuroscience 2021. He is an active member of the Hellenic Initiative Against Alzheimer’s Disease (HIAAD.gr), a network of basic and clinical scientists promoting translational and clinical research as well as Alzheimer’s disease daycare centers in Greece.

Dr. Lucy Privitera is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at Queen Mary University of London, Malta Campus and Honorary Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. Dr. Privitera is neurobiologist of learning and memory. Her research combines neuroscience, biology and pharmacology to address specific issues of the molecular mechanisms underlying learning and memory in both healthy conditions and in neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr Privitera scientific expertise is ex-vivo and in-vivo electrophysiology, behavioural study, optogenetics and biochemistry (IHC, WB). Dr Privitera serves in Editorial Boards at Frontiers in Molecular Medicine - Molecular Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration, and at Journal Neuroscience Methods Elsevier.

Nermeen Zakaria Abuelezz is an Associate Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at faculty of Pharmacy, MUST University , Egypt. Earned master’s and PhD degrees in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University. Her research focus is into exploring molecular disruptions implicated in inflammatory and neurodegenerative disorders and Investigating potential early diagnostic biomarkers for neurodegenerative disorders as Alzheimer’s. She also works with her team on Integration of biocompatible nano-formulations for enhancing therapeutic and biomedical applications of biomolecules. In 2019, She was awarded an STDF grant as a principal investigator for youth research project to investigate microRNAs as potential diagnostic markers for Alzheimer’s in the Egyptian population. In 2023, she was awarded a visiting fellowship for training and research by Mujeres Por Africa Foundation to investigate molecular alterations in Alzheimer’s disease, as a visiting fellow at the institute of neurosciences, Miguel Hernandez University, Alicante, Spain. She is also the winner of the second edition of Women in Science contest “From labs to Society Proposal” for creation of a platform to raise awareness about dementia and promote support for dementia affected families in Egypt.

Sandra Vaz did her Phd at the Universidade de Lisboa and the University of Copenhagen, studying the modulation of GABA transporter in astrocytes by BDNF, them she move for a postdoc at Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes to study the role of astrocytes on synaptic plasticity and she is now an Associate Professor at the FMUL and a Researcher at iMM, in Lisbon. She has a solid reputation in the field of astrocytes, with her research focused on the tripartite synapse, particularly the regulation of synaptic activity by astrocytes. As a result, she has developed broad expertise in the field of astrocyte-neuron communication, becoming an expert in GABA transporters, BDNF/TrkB signaling, and modulation of the adenosinergic system in both astrocytes and neurons. Currently, she is interested in studying the astrocytic mechanisms implicated in Childhood Absence Epilepsy, ALS, and Alzheimer’s disease, particularly involving neurotransmitter transporters, adenosine receptors, and the endocannabinoid CB1 receptor. Many of her projects have been motivated by her interest in cellular Ca2+ signaling, as well as her knowledge of patch-clamp, field-excitatory postsynaptic, and microelectrode array (MEA) system recordings as proven by her publication track record. Ehe has been supervising several Ph.D. and MSc students, and along with her scientific management, Sandra has been involved in the management of scientific society, being part of the board of the Portuguese Glial Network (rede glial portuguesa) and the Portuguese Society of Farmacology, and Council in the Mediterranean Neuroscience Society. In 2021, she was awarded the International Society for Neurochemistry Career Development Grant.

Taoufik Ghrairi is Full Professor in the Department of Biology at the Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, Tunis, Tunisia. His research interests lie in the area of Actives Biomolecules ranging from Neuroprotection to antimicrobials activities. Taoufik has served on roughly twenty conference and workshop program committees and served as the Program Chair for BMAT2020 and MNS2023 confrences. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal Annals of Microbiology. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Tunis El Manar University and University of Poitiers in 2004.

Zakaria Ouhaz is an Assistant Professor of physiology at “Institut Supérieur des Professions Infirmière et techniques de la santé” of Marrakech, Morocco. He received his doctorate in Neuroscience from Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco, and completed his postdoctoral training in the Lab of Professor Anna Mitchell at the University of Oxford. A Royal Society Newton International Fellowship is currently supporting Pr Ouhaz's research. Pr Ouhaz’s research aims to understand the functional importance and underlying mechanisms associated with cortical-thalamocortical interactions in some of our daily cognitive abilities, e.g., learning new information, memory recall, and adaptive decision-making. He uses a combination of research techniques, including behavioural and cognitive neuroscience testing, rodent electrophysiology, lesion studies and pharmacogenetics, brain imaging, and neuroanatomical tracing studies. He is currently investigating how, and in what ways the interactions between the mediodorsal thalamus and interconnected neural regions (especially cortex) contribute to cognitive functioning using rodents. Dr Ouhaz also studies cognitive abilities in following damage in the dorsal thalamus, e.g., after stroke or schizophrenia.