Amos Korczyn – Israel:Professor Amos Korczyn was past Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the Tel-Aviv Medical Center from 1981 until 2002, and the incumbent of the Sieratzki Chair of Neurology at Tel-Aviv University, 1995-2010. Professor Korczyn has an interest in neurodegenerative diseases. He has authored or co-authored over 600 articles. He has edited several books and Special Issues in Journals, and is Regional Editor of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. He is or has been an Editorial Board member of 20 international journals, and organized several neurological conferences, mainly in the field of dementia, Parkinson’s disease and other degenerative brain disorders, as well as CONy – the International Congress on Controversies in Neurology, and has organized the Mental Dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease congresses since 1993. Professor Korczyn served on advisory boards in several drug discovery programs.
SHAI EFRATI – Israel: (Oxygen: A limiting factor for brain recovery and enhanced cognitive-motor performance)
Gerry Leisman- Israel & Cuba:(On the prenatal cognitive life of the fetus in action)Gerry Leisman is Professor of Neuro and Rehabilitation Sciences and Research Fellow in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Haifa, Director of the institute for Brain and Rehabilitation Sciences and Professor of Restorative Neurology at the University of the Medical Sciences in Havana, Cuba. He will be discussing the the capacity of the fetus to learn and memorize examining the high activity in primary cortical areas and low activity in association areas. Clinically relevant data on cognitive functions of the fetus could be important for the management of fetal pain and treatment of preterm infants as well as for improved neurodevelopmental outcome of fetuses from high-risk pregnancies.
Aron S. Buchman – USA: ( Mobility Impairments in Older Adults: An Understudied AD Phenotype)Aron S. Buchman, is a professor in the Department of Neurological Sciences at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He received a career development award from the NINDS/NIH from 1994-99 for his work that investigated motor control and motor unit recruitment. Buchman was a research fellow at the NeuroMuscular Research Center at Boston University from 1992-95. He was a visiting scientist in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science from 1995-97. Buchman’s research interests include the effects of aging on the motor system. More recently his research has focused on identifying the structural basis of clinical frailty in older persons, exploring the pathologic indices linking risk factors to the development of frailty so as to provide a conceptual basis for the development and testing of interventions to reduce the burden of this common syndrome in older adults.
Robert Melillo, the leader of the symposium is a well known author having co-written “Neurobehavioral Disorders in Childhood; An Evolutionary Perspective”, as well as the popular books, “Disconnected Kids”, “Reconnected Kids” and others. The special keynote symposium discuss neurodevelopmental issues that include the effects of retained primitive reflexes in childhood and adults, the effects of hemisphere specific training, The employment of the nervous system to repair itself in restorative neurological applications that include autism spectrum disorders, addictions, and cognitive functions.
Calixto Machado (Cognitive imaging of movement in persistent vegetative states: Brain, body and cognition)The presentation will reference individuals with no capacity to perform voluntary physical movements in response to commands, when instructed to imagine performing a physical activity, such as playing tennis or kicking a football, the area of the brain responsible for controlling movement, becomes active. The vegetative patients demonstrating signs of hidden awareness have significantly well-preserved movement networks similar to
those healthy adults. The new findings could help us identify patients who actually have some awareness as well as improve their clinical assessment.
