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Funded by the MCSA & Citizens action - RAISE is built around a concept of co-creation that will blend Researchers at Schools (RAS) activities with European Researchers’ Nights (ERN) public events over the next two years.

In the USA, rTMS was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2008 to treat patients suffering from treatment resistant depression, or in other words, patients who do not respond to standard antidepressants. It has since been approved or recommended in several other countries. The main advantage of rTMS is that it is a non-invasive, drug-free, and safe alternative treatment that really works: up to half of the patients for whom other antidepressant strategies have not worked will respond to rTMS.

Let's face it. As enticing as the idea of starting lunch with a chocolate cake might be, few would actually make that choice when it comes down to it. And yet, at the end of the meal, many would reach for that same cake without hesitation. 

The cause behind this phenomenon is the body's ever-changing internal states: by lunchtime, the body often needs protein, so the brain promotes that particular food choice. However, after the protein was ingested, carbs might be a nice extra for padding the body’s fat stores. 

A study published today (July 6th) in the journal Nature, uncovers how the brain stops us from jumping the gun. "We discovered a brain area responsible for driving action and another for suppressing that drive. We could also trigger impulsive behaviour by manipulating neurons in these areas", said the study's senior author, Joe Paton, Director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme in Portugal.

Aside from Raquel Oliveira and Carlos Ribeiro, who conduct their research at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência and Champalimaud Foundation, respectively, 56 other EMBO Members have been elected this year, coming from 15 different Member States of the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC), EMBO’s intergovernmental funding body.

Researchers from the Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory at the Champalimaud Foundation, in Portugal, strive to understand how social context influences the individual's response to threats. 

Previously, they have shown that when fruit flies in a group are faced with an inescapable threat, they lower their defences compared to when alone. They further observed that if the other flies freeze, then so will the individual; when the group starts moving again, the individual quickly follows. Being in tune with the surrounding flies seems to bring security.