Clinical neuroscience division (NEUR)

The Clinical Neurosciences division of the IoNS is composed of nine research groups from Cliniques Universitaires UCL Saint-Luc, CHU Dinant-Godinne UCL and CPS Louvain-la-Neuve UCL. Research is closely interconnected with the clinical activities and utilizes a broad technological repertoire.
NEUR aims at understanding clinical, physiopathological, biochemical, inflammatory, cognitive and social-cognitive, emotional, brain structural and functional dimensions, and neuropharmacological aspects of various nervous/mental disorders. It mainly focusses on studies in humans, but these are also sometimes complemented by preclinical studies.

  • Neurological diseases: stroke (acute management, brain plasticity, non-invasive brain stimulation for therapeutic purpose), inflammatory diseases (in relation with the CSF analysis), neuromuscular disorders, Parkinson’s disease (deep brain stimulation), Alzheimer’s disease (early diagnosis by cognitive evaluation and biomarkers), refractory epilepsy, chronic pain, childhood neurometabolic disorders.
  • Neuro-otology (cochlear implant induced plasticity, tinnitus) and the chemosensitive platform (neurophysiology, imaging, psychophysics)
  • Neurosurgical aspects in neurooncology , neurovascular disorders, epilepsy surgery (including invasive EEG)
  • Eye movement, oculomotor as well as neurosensory disorders
  • Emotional, visual and musical recognition, cognitive, biological aspects in various psychiatric disorders : schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, alcohol dependency, anxious disorders, dépression, eating disorders, gambling.
  • The neuroimaging group occupies a central position to many research projects including: brain perfusion imaging, preoperatory MRI in neuro-oncology, functional MRI, thermography, cerebral pathophysiology of stroke, etc.