On the agen­da are the 3rd Nordic Neu­ro­science Meet­ing and a vis­it to the new lab of group leader Annette Horstmann, who was recent­ly appoint­ed as an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Behav­iour­al and Brain Sci­ences at the Depart­ment of Psy­chol­o­gy and Logo­pe­dics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Helsin­ki. In a range of posts, we will share some of the high­lights of our visit.

On Wednes­day June 12th, the con­fer­ence start­ed. Pro­fes­sor Dan Lind­holm warm­ly wel­comed us with his extra­or­di­nary sense of humor.

One of the high­lights was the keynote lec­ture by Pro­fes­sor Trevor Rob­bins from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge, who gave an excel­lent and engag­ing talk on com­pul­sive behav­iour in obses­sive com­pul­sive dis­or­der and addic­tion. His research on the fron­tos­tri­atal brain cir­cuits under­ly­ing behav­iour­al flex­i­bil­i­ty, and the role of dopamine in these cir­cuits, is high­ly rel­e­vant to the research we are doing in the con­text of obe­si­ty and diet. The con­fer­ence was a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss our upcom­ing study with Prof. Rob­bins, which we did over din­ner on the evening before the con­fer­ence. On Fri­day, I will present the project dur­ing the poster pre­sen­ta­tion ses­sion for more input. This way we make most of the conference!

The first con­fer­ence day also hap­pened to coin­cide with Helsinki’s birth­day, which is cel­e­brat­ed all over town. The Helsin­ki hos­pi­tal­i­ty is amaz­ing and it’s an absolute plea­sure to be here. Hap­py birth­day, Helsinki!

Lieneke Janssen