Andrea Serino wins 2016 Leenaards Award
Left to right: Andrea Serino (EPFL), Arnaud Saj (HUG & UNIGE) and Dimitri Van De Ville (EPFL & UNIGE) © Delphine Schacher/phovea
One of the two 2016 Leenaards awards has been awarded to a research project including Dr Andrea Serino at EPFL’s Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience.
The Leenaards Foundation, founded in 1980, awarded a total amount of CHF 1,200,000 to two projects in translational biomedical research. This field combines clinical research and basic science, and aims to rapidly translate basic discoveries into therapeutic applications.
Dr Andrea Serino is a senior scientist at EPFL’s Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience (Professor Olaf Blanke), working in the framework of the Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics. The award-winning project is led by Dr Serino, Dr Arnaud Saj (HUG & UNIGE), and Professor Dimitri Van De Ville (EPFL-STI/IBI & UNIGE). The team will seek to help patients recover from spatial neglect syndrome following stroke. This is a neuropsychological condition where damage to one hemisphere – usually the right - of the brain causes loss of attention and awareness of the opposite side of space.
Neglect syndrome involves an unbalance between the damaged, weaker, hemisphere and the healthy, stronger one. Therefore, the key idea of the project is to help the patient learn how to regulate his or her own brain activity so as to restore hemispheric balance.
To this end, the research team will use Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) in an innovative way: to detect and show in real-time patients’ brain activity, in order to train the patient in regulating it. This way, patients become directly involved in their own recovery, either by activating their imagination or by performing concentration exercises.
“This is a very ambitious project for stroke rehabilitation,” says Andrea Serino. “It is possible only through the combination of the most current lines of research on the neural mechanisms of attention and awareness of space, cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques, and extensive experience in neuropsychology and neurorehabilitation. This combination of expertise is the strength of our multidiscliplinary and multicenter team.”
In the near future, the goal will be to transfer the knowledge and technology acquired through this project to more portable and more accessible devices such as smartphones, thus allowing patients to work on their rehabilitation in their own homes.
The awards will be presented in a ceremony at EPFL’s SwissTech Convention Center on March 10, 2016.
Links
• Leenaards Foundation
• Leenaards Foundation Press Release (French only)