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Joaquim Fuster, guest professor at the seminar on non-invasive brain stimulation in Avante
Publication date: June 2008
The Professor in Psychiatry and Biobehaviour of the University of California and contributor of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour of the same university, Joaquim Fuster, will participate in the Seminar on Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation in Neurorehabilitation which will be held in Thursday, the 5th of June, in Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via Exhibition Centre within the setting of Avante. This seminar will serve to present the research carried out in the Guttmann Institute within the Chair in Biomedicine of the BBVA Foundation for translational research into the optimisation of plasticity in neurorehabilitation.
Joaquim Fuster (Barcelona, 1930) is renowned worldwide for his research into the mechanisms by which the cerebral cortex stores and preserves information in working memory, a highly important cognitive function in coordinating behaviour, language and reasoning. Fuster says that the three forms of memory –short-term memory, working memory and long-term memory– share the same networks. In his latest research, Fuster goes even further and states that all cognitive functions (perception, attention, intelligence and language, etc.) are based on neuronal transactions. Understanding the workings and inter-connection of these networks can aid in the treatment of neurologically-based disorders, such as trauma, dementia, Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia.
One of the techniques applied to affect the capacity for neuronal connectivity and communication is non-invasive brain stimulation, whereby the neural network is electrically activated in certain zones, modulating its activity in a controlled and lasting manner. This treatment is used, with encouraging results, to treat depression, motor function disorders and speech alteration, among others.
In this sense, the theoretical and practical seminar which will take place in Avante will serve to present the results of the research into the potential benefits of the use of non-invasive brain stimulation in the treatment of spasticity, pain, rehabilitation of motor function, and cognitive and neuropsychiatric rehabilitation carried out in the BBVA Foundation Chair in Biomedicine, run by the Professor in Neurology at Harvard, and Director of the Berelson-Allen Center for Non Invasive Brain Stimulation, Álvaro Pascual-Leone. Speakers at the seminar sessions will be professionals from the Berenson-Allen Center for Non Invasive Brain Stimulation (Harvard) and from the Guttmann Institute.
Barcelona, June 2008
Attached archives: Seminar: Non-invasive brain stimulation in neurorehabiliation
Head of press: Maria Dolors Herranzº
Contact telephoneo: 93 233 25 41
Email address: mdherranz@firabcn.es