PRESS RELEASE

Mara Dierssen, leader of the Cellular and Systems Neurobiology group, has been appointed a member of Academia Europaea. Dr. Dierssen is the only Spanish scientist in the field of behavioural sciences and one of the few women in this association.

Academia Europaea is a non-governmental association acting as an academy. It comprises scientists and scholars who collectively aim to promote learning, education and research. Founded in 1988, with over 3000 members, it includes leading experts from the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, letters and humanities, social, and cognitive sciences, economics and law. Election to the academy is through peer nomination and a rigorous evaluation process. 

Mara Dierssen, leader of the Cellular and Systems Neurobiology group, has recently been appointed a member of Academia Europaea. She is one of 18 women out of a total of 110 Spanish members in the Academia and the only Spanish member in the behavioural sciences section. “It is an honour to be a member of an institution that brings together the most important, leading scientists from across Europe, including 38 Nobel Prize winners”, stated Dr. Dierssen when she was elected.

“Academia Europaea gives us the opportunity to interact with top scientists in many different research fields. In this way it promotes and facilitates collaboration between researchers that would otherwise never come into contact because of their apparently disparate fields”, explains Mara Dierssen. “Spanish neuroscientists can definitively contribute to the goals of Academia Europaea, while at the same time, promoting new collaborations and raising the profile of Spanish research thanks to this organisation’s reputation for excellence”, she concludes.

Dr. Dierssen will be the second member of the CRG in Academia Europaea, and will join Thomas Graf, member of the Cell Biology section in the Academia since 1991.
 

Down’s Syndrome, panic and anxiety, obesity and nicotine dependence

Dr. Dierssen’s laboratory aims to decipher brain mechanisms subserving learning and memory, and how these are altered in cognitive pathology. They aim to understand how the neuronal architecture and connectivity constrain the mesoscopic network activity and influence the flow and storage of information in neuronal circuits in human cognitive-related disorders.

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