IoNS Young Researchers Day

Dear IoNS Members,

We are pleased to announce that registration for passive attendance at the IoNS Young Researchers’ Day is now open. 

The event will take place on April 29, 2025, in the Auditorium Maisin at the Brussels Woluwe campus.

Keynote Speaker :

For those who are still hesitant  we are excited to share that this year’s keynote lecture will be delivered by Nadia Malliou:

Nadia Malliou holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Cognitive and Experimental Psychology. Her Master thesis was on the Quality of Life of Patients living Chronic Diseases and is now a chapter in a book. She is a PhD candidate studying perioperative psychological interventions for chronic post-surgical pain. Her interest in chronic diseases and chronic pain management has been ongoing both in research as well as in her clinical practice. She has been supporting chronic diseases and pain patients in the Pain Unit of the University General Hospital AHEPA in Thessaloniki since 2019. Nadia has 2 perspectives when participating in research. She is a chronic pain patient herself, with a long experience among patients’ communities. Currently the President of Pain Alliance Europe and on the Board of other EU and national organizations she has participated in numerous congresses as a speaker and has been part of several consortia with both perspectives, as a researcher and/or a patient representative. 

During the Young Researchers' Day Nadia Malliou will present a talk titled: "Empowering Research Through Patient Involvement."

In addition, the event will feature oral presentations, poster sessions, and blitz talks by IoNS PhD students.

You'll furthermore gain career insights thanks to a discussion with former PhD students who have followed various carreer paths: 

• Céline Vermeiren (UCB):

Céline Vermeiren did her PhD at UCLouvain under the supervision of Professor Emmanuel Hermans in NFAR lab. She studied the interaction between glutamate transporter and metabotropic receptor in the context of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.  She defended her PhD in 2005 and then moved to UCB BioPharma in Braine-l’Alleud where she has been doing research for 20 years now. She works on the identification of new starting points to develop drugs in central nervous system diseases. Today, she is leading the screening team in in vitro pharmacology department. 

• Athanasia Moungou (EU Commission):

Athanasia Moungou holds a Bachelor's degree in Linguistics from the University of Athens. After being increasingly interested in neuroscience, she opted for a Master's in Neuroscience of Language from University College London (UK) and then had the opportunity to complete a PhD in Neuroscience of Touch at Université Catholique de Louvain and the Institute of Neuroscience under the supervision of André Mouraux and Jean-Louis Thonnard. She then conducted postdoctoral research on social touch at Linköping University in Sweden. 

Since 2019, she has worked at the European Commission in various roles, including communication events in Digital, policymaking on gender equality in Research and Innovation, and as a project advisor at the European Research Executive Agency, supporting projects that strengthen the European Research Area and improve researchers' careers.  

• Sylvie Nozaradan (UCLouvain, IoNS):

Sylvie Nozaradan, MD PhD, is currently head of the Rhythm & Brains Lab based in Brussels, and a tenured Professor at the Institute of Neuroscience, UCLouvain, Belgium, since 2018. The same year, she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council to develop her research on the brain mechanisms supporting perception and entrainment to the beat in music. She has a dual background in music (Master in piano performance, Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, Belgium) and science (medical doctor, UCLouvain). She conducted a joint PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Université de Montréal, Canada, and UCLouvain, Belgium, followed by a postdoctoral stay at Western Sydney University, Australia, to develop her research line on the perception of musical rhythm. Her research focuses on the brain processes enabling humans to perceive and move to musical rhythm. 

• Victor Brossard (Trinoma):

Dr. Victor Brossard is the head of innovation at Trinoma. He conducted a PhD in cognitive psychology at the University of Lille (France), where he developed analysis techniques to unravel the emotional body experience. The goal was to further the understanding of how emotions modulate behaviors, movement and body physiology. This line of research can be applied in a broad range of domains, from the creation of new clinical readaptation programs for injured athletes to building adaptive sensorial environments to increase well-being and emotional awareness of users.  

Do not hesitate to contact us at alexiane.demunter@uclouvain.be if you have any questions. 

Registration : 

You can register for passive attendance (free of charge) until April 12 using the following registration form: https://forms.gle/ZhCYt5VzQ96CgXp78

We highly encourage PIs, Postdocs, PhD students, Master’s students, interns, and visitors within IoNS to attend. If you know of colleagues who may not be on this mailing list, please feel free to forward this email to them.

Looking forward to seeing you at the event!

Best regards,

The Young Researcher's Day Organizing Committee

Dear IoNS members,

We are excited to announce that this year's IoNS Young Researchers Day will take place on Tuesday 30th of April 2024 in Auditorium Maisin, Brussels Woluwe campus.

What is Young Researchers Day?
This internal conference gives the young researchers at the Institute an opportunity to present their planned, ongoing, or completed work to their peers and colleagues in a friendly environment, gain constructive feedback, practice before presenting at larger scientific conferences, and receive recognition for the best presentations.
In particular PhD students are encouraged to present their projects. Master students interested in pursuing a PhD in the future are also very welcome to present.
We further welcome the PIs to attend this meeting to provide valuable feedback and support their students.
The day of young researchers' presentations in form of talks, blitz talks, and posters, will be complemented by an invited keynote lecture, and many opportunities to socialize over coffee, delicious lunch, and post-conference drinks.

Keynote Speaker
We are excited to announce that this year’s keynote lecture will be given by An Ansom who will give a talk entitled: "Research and Emotions: How to be a scientist... and human".

Abstract submission (talk/poster/blitz talk)
Those who wish to present should submit the abstracts of their presentations before the 30^th of March, using this form:

https://forms.gle/fNwFPiTi1qd4Ls6S9

The possible presentation formats include:

• Oral presentation (10 min talk + 5 min questions)
• Poster presentation
• Blitz talk (3 min talk before the poster session) + Poster

All abstracts and presentations should be prepared in English. Abstracts are limited to 250 words.
Note that if there are more oral presentation submissions than we can accommodate, these will be chosen on first come first serve basis. We will confirm your presentation format at least three weeks before the event. For oral presentations, you will also receive a suggested PowerPoint template.

Registration (passive attendance)
You can register (for free) until the 12^th of April using this form: https://forms.gle/TC7F9oboeWPJmkHd8

We strongly encourage all the PIs, Postdocs, PhD students, Master students, interns, and visitors in IoNS to attend. If you know of any colleagues who may not be on this mailing list, feel free to forward them this email.

Do not hesitate to contact us at youngresearchersdayions@uclouvain.be if you have any questions.

We look forward to seeing you in April!

The Young Researcher's Day Organizing Committee

We are excited to announce that this year's IoNS Young Researchers Day will take place on the 20^th of April 2023 in Auditorium Maisin, Brussels Woluwe campus.

What is Young Researchers Day?

This internal conference gives the young researchers in the Institue an opportunity to present their planned, ongoing, or completed work to their peers and colleagues in a friendly environment, gain constructive feedback, practice before presenting at larger scientific conferences, and receive recognition for the best presentations.

In particular PhD students are encouraged to present their projects. Master students interested in pursuing a PhD in the future are also very welcome to present.

We further welcome the PIs to attend this meeting to provide valuable feedback and support their students.

The day of young researchers' presentations in form of talks, blitz talks, and posters, will be complemented by an invited keynote lecture, and many opportunities to socialise over coffee, delicious lunch, and post-conference drinks.

Registration

Please register your interest in attending and presenting at the Young Researchers Day using this form: https://forms.gle/pv6PguSnkR6GtPgx9

Registration for passive attendance will remain open until the 27^th of March.

Abstract submission

Those who wish to present should submit the abstracts of their presentations before the 20^th of March, using this form: https://forms.gle/ZgYYzP56x495RNCt8

The possible presentation formats include:

• Oral presentation (10 min talk + 5 min questions)
• Poster presentation
• Blitz talk (3 min talk before the poster session) + Poster

All abstracts and presentations should be prepared in English. Abstracts are limited to 250 words.

Note that if there are more oral presentation submissions than we can accommodate, these will be chosen on first come first serve basis. We will confirm your presentation format at least three weeks before the event. For oral presentations, you will also receive a suggested PowerPoint template

We look forward to seeing you in April!

The Young Researchers Day Organizing Committee

Due to the current sanitary crisis your favourite work event - Young Researcher Day - will be held online this year.

Already next Wednesday 18/11 you will have the opportunity to enjoy directly from the comfort of your living room 9 talks and 13 blitz talks delivered by young researchers of our institute.

The new form brings some changes to the general structure of the event. Most importantly, we have decided to replace poster presentations with Blitz Talks. For those who are not familiar with the format, these are short oral presentations (5 mins) with maximum 5 slides. This way presenters will be able to communicate the key facts to all attendees and interested public can approach them to discuss the details of presented projects. For this purpose we will set up Breakout rooms for each Blitz Talk presenter that will be available during breaks. Longer Talks will keep the traditional format of 10 - 15 mins of presentations followed by time for questions, this time also in a written form. And as usual we will award amazing financial prizes to the best Talk and the best Blitz Talk based on YOUR vote.

On top of that, we have a couple of extras this time:

Dr. Remi Gau from the Cross-modal perception and plasticity lab will present CPP_BIDS, a MATLAB toolbox for behavioral experiments data management.

Prof. Gunter Kenis from Maastrich University will introduce the European Graduate School of Neuroscience - EURON - and all it has to offer (not only) to PhD students of partner universities.

Prof. Frederick Verbruggen from Ghent University will give the most anticipated keynote talk with the title 'Towards Open (Psychological) Science'.

We are also very proud to announce that this year YRD prizes are sponsored by Trinoma and Promega. Representatives of both companies will give a blitz talk during the event, so stay connected and check them out!

Preliminary agenda

9:00 - 10:10 - Welcome + First session of oral presentations

• Talk 1: Thibaut Toussaint - Control of energy dissipation when landing from a jump
• Talk 2: Mattia Ferraiolo - Treating Parkinson’s Disease: a matter of density?
• Talk 3: Julien Lambert - Transcranial focused ultrasonic stimulation to modulate the human primary somatosensory cortex

10:10 – 10:20 - Break

10:20 – 11:45 - Second session of oral presentations

• Talk 4: Lars Stumpp - Vagus nerve electroneurogram based detection of acute Pentylenetetrazol induced seizures in rats
• Talk 5: Elisa Calvo Jimenez - Reelin-Regulated Functions of FGFRs during the Development of the Mammalian Cerebral Cortex
• Talk 6: Dominika Šulcová - GABAergic neurotransmission in human brain characterized by single- and paired-pulse TMS with EEG co-registration and pharmacological GABAA activation

Special Talk Presentation EURON

11:45 – 11:50 - Break

11:50 - 12:35 - First Data Blitz session

• Blitz 1: Igor Iarrobino - Right and left inferior frontal opercula are involved in discriminating angry and sad facial expressions
• Blitz 2: Andrea Angla Navarro - Non-cell autonomous regulation of pre-motor interneuron development in the chicken embryonic spinal cord
• Blitz 3: Astrid Carton de Tournai - Sensitivity and responsiveness of the modified Jebsen-Taylor Test of Hand Function for children with unilateral cerebral palsy: an experimental retrospective study
• Blitz 4: Inci Cakiroglu - Case report of ipsilateral motor evoked potentials induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation over the left hemisphere of a Parkinson Disease patient implanted with Deep Brain Stimulation
• Blitz 5: Georges Chehade - The fragile balance between proliferation and neoplasia in neural stem cells: Role of DIAPH3 in glioblastoma
• Blitz 6: Sophie van Doorslaer de ten Ryen - The regulation of satellite cells by resistance training in hypoxia

SPECIAL BLITZ Sponsor PROMEGA

12:35 – 13:30 - Break + private discussion Data Blitz Session 1

13:30 – 14:55 - Third session of oral presentations

• Talk 7: Rémi Gau - CPP_BIDS: a lightweight toolbox for behavioral experiments to help you with good data management practices
• Talk 8: Pegdwendé Kabore - False beliefs of patients and management of chronic low back pain in Burkina Faso’s Health services
• Talk 9: Estelle Balan - Endurance training status reduced inflammation and TERRA expression without influencing senescence in skeletal muscle of older individuals
• Talk 10: Ghady El Khoury - Development of a hand activities monitoring device

14:55 – 15:00 - Break

15:00 – 15:45 - Second Data Blitz session

• Blitz 7: Anne Hoffmann - Combined influence of visual and proprioceptive feedback on motor control and adaptation
• Blitz 8: Lars Stumpp - Electro Neurogram Recording and Single Unit Activity detection in the Vagus nerve for seizure detection
• Blitz 9: Geoffrey Warnier - Effects of sprint interval training at different altitudes on cycling performance at sea-level
• Blitz 10: Fanny Fievez - Post-error adjustments reflect the joint impact of strategic and automatic processes
• Blitz 11: Charlotte Baudouin - Generation and characterization of tamoxifen-inducible Vsx1-CreERT2 reporter mice line
• Blitz 1:2 Seyma Kilcioglu – From selective motor control to motor skill learning in cerebral palsy
• Blitz 13: Florence Blondiaux - Saccadic adaptation of Essential Tremor patients

15:45 - 16:15 - Vote + private discussion Data Blitz Session 2

16:15 - 16:20 - Sponsor Presentation TRINOMA

16:20 - 16:30 - Word of the IoNS President + Prizes

16:30 - 17:45 - Keynote talk : Prof. Frederick Verbruggen from the Ghent University (Department of Experimental psychology).

Abstract: Towards Open (Psychological) Science

In the last couple of years, there have been calls from governments, research funders, publishers, as well as grassroots activists, for science to be more open. To some extent, this has to do with recent cases of scientific misconduct or bad research practice that have troubled many disciplines. However, a much more positive case can be madefor Open Science as well. In this presentation, I will discuss why Open Science is important for psychology and why we should embrace it (even though it undeniably comes with certain challenges). I will also discuss how we implement certain principles in my research group (including a 'co-pilot' system).

Download here the Program & Abstract book

Don't forget to brush up you cocktail making skills, so we can share a virtual drink or two.