This week the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health (ISEH) and UCL hosted the international conference on “Boosting Brain Health Through Lifestyle Interventions”, marking an exciting milestone for the global exercise neuroscience community.
More than 200 delegates from 5 continents came together in London to explore the latest advances in how physical activity and lifestyle factors can support brain health across the lifespan.
The four-day conference, developed and chaired by Prof Flaminia Ronca, brought together world leading academics, clinicians, practitioners and early career researchers to shape the future of the field together.
The pre-conference programme, hosted at the ISEH, included a Brain fNIRS workshop and a Hackathon with five winning teams.
The workshop was delivered in partnership with Artinis / NIRx, UCL and Birkbeck University, where attendees learned best practice in the application and processing in brain fNIRS imaging.
The hackathon was delivered by Labfront, Garmin and the ISEH, where interdisciplinary teams of newly acquainted early career researchers pitched for innovation projects, and winning teams were awarded funding to implement them. All projects sought to develop interventions to support brain health using wearable devices.
Across the main conference, delegates explored topics spanning dementia prevention, clinical rehabilitation, exercise neurobiology, nutrition, mechanistic pathways, biomarkers, and lifestyle medicine. Highlights included keynotes from internationally recognised experts, including founding committee members Prof Kirk Erickson, Assoc Prof Christiane Wrann and Assoc Prof Henriette van Praag; and an impressive line up of invited speakers and submitted abstracts.
A key differentiator of the conference was the emphasis on cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaboration; a high priority which was achieved through panel discussions and workshops.
Prof Ronca said “It was inspiring to welcome such a diverse group gathered with one common goal: improving people’s lives. Delegates across multiple sectors, disciplines and career stages connected to build something meaningful. I really look forward to developing this further together.”
The science didn’t stop at the meeting. True to the conference theme of promoting healthy lifestyles, delegates took part in a social fun run and enjoyed a memorable evening exploring the science of chocolate, polyphenols and brain health.
We are grateful every delegate and invited speaker who travelled to London to contribute their expertise, enthusiasm and commitment to advancing exercise neuroscience. The conversations, collaborations and ideas generated over the past few days will continue to drive research that improves brain health worldwide.
We extend our sincere thanks to our founding committee, organising team, speakers, sponsors, exhibitors and volunteers whose dedication made this inaugural meeting such a success. In particular, we recognise the leadership of Prof Ronca and the founding group of the International Society for Exercise Neuroscience (ISENS) for bringing this vision to life.
With special thanks to:
Founding committee:
- Flaminia Ronca
- Christiane Wrann
- Henriette van Praag
- Kirk Erickson
Scientific committee:
- Raha Razin
- Takeshi Hashimoto
- Matthew Taylor
- Liye Zou
- Irene Esteban-Cornejo
- Sina Rosenkranz
- Evandro Fang
- Mike Loosemore
- Filip Swirski
- Giselle Petzinger
- Michael Jakowec
- Lauren Oberlin
- Swathi Gujral
- Chinedu Momoh
- Anthony Hannan
- Andrew Ahn
- Daphne van der Putte
- Jaime Tartar
- Benjamin Tari
- Guido Orgs
- Henning Boecker
Hackathon committee:
- Rebeca Gavrila (Chair)
- Jordan Masys
- Abbie Mason
- Terun Desai
- Kate Rattley
- Uz Hakim
- Tim Morris
Support and organisation:
- Abbie Mason
- Laura Robertson
- Helen Bell
- Sophie Flanagan
- Sarah Thackray
- Sophia Watson
- Aisha Abass
Sponsors:
- TopTech – Jianchuang Technology
- Labfront
- Artinis NIRx
- Xiel
- Heights
