Presidential Symposium

The core/penumbra model: implications for acute stroke treatment and patient selection in 2021

Professor Jean-Claude Baron trained in Clinical Neurology at the Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, then in functional brain imaging and medical physics at Harvard, USA and the Atomic Energy Commission, France. He holds a Doctorate in Science from the University of Cambridge, UK, and is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, of the UK Royal College of Physicians and of the European Stroke Organization. He created and directed from 1988 to 2000 the Inserm Neurosciences unit, and was Scientific Director of the CYCERON Neuroscience Centre, at the Université de Basse-Normandie, Caen, France. From 2000 to 2010, he held the Chair of Stroke Medicine at Cambridge University and was Honorary Neurology consultant at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK. Since 2010 he has worked as Director of Research at the Inserm/Paris University Research Centre for Psychiatry and Neuroscience (Deputy-Director: 2010-2015), as well as Neurology consultant at Sainte-Anne Hospital. He is a pioneer in the applications of PET in cerebrovascular diseases and has used this technique along with other imaging modalities including CT, MR and SPECT to study the pathophysiology of cerebrovascular diseases and the mechanisms underlying post-stroke recovery, both in patients and animal models. His main contributions include i) the documentation of the existence of the ischemic penumbra in man; ii) the concept that advanced imaging should be used to select acute stroke patients for personalized therapy and trials; iii) the demonstration of the hemodynamic basis of some carotid-territory TIAs; and iii) the discovery of crossed cerebellar diaschisis. He has also made significant contributions in the field of neurodegenerative disorders. He was awarded the European Stroke Conference Johannes Wepfer award in 2005, and the 2014 French Academy of Sciences Mémain-Pelletier award. He has published over 450 peer-reviewed articles and has over 30,000 citations (h-index: 95).

History of prion science

Adriano Aguzzi is professor and director of the Institute of Neuropathology at the University of Zurich. He has devoted the past 25 years to studying the immunological and molecular basis of prion pathogenesis, combining transgenetics with molecular and immunological techniques to clarify the pathogenesis of the disease, and to identify cells and molecules involved in prion neuroinvasion. He is the Founder and Director of the Swiss National Reference Center for Prion Diseases and has developed diagnostic and therapeutic methods in the field of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. He serves on the editorial board of Science and is the Editor in Chief of the Swiss Medical Weekly; he also serves on the scientific advisory board of philanthropic foundations and biomedical companies. Among other honors, Prof. Aguzzi has won Ernst-Jung Prize, the Robert Koch Prize, the medal of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the NOMIS Distinguished Scientist Award and has held two ERC Advanced Grants.

Romberg and his famous test - what more do we know 170 years later?

Professor Halmágyi was born in 1947 in Szeged, Hungary. He attended medical school between the years 1964-1976. During these years he specialised in internal medicine then undertook general neurology training in Sydney. Between years 1977-1979 he worked in National Hospital for Nervous Disease, Queen Square in London, UK. He was awarded neuro-otology research fellow with Dr MA Gresty in MRC Hearing and Balance Unit (founded by Dr CS Hallpike) and also fellow in clinical neuro-otology (Dr MR Dix), in clinical neuro-ophthalmology (Dr MD Sanders) and clinical neurology (Prof WI McDonald).

Since 1980, he is staff neurologist at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney and clinical professor, University of Sydney. In 1990 he founded the Neuro-otology Society of Australia. Later on, in 1996, he was awarded Hallpike-Nylen Prize of the Bárány Society. In 2012 he received Officer of the Order of Australia. Among his main research interests are: measurement of human vestibular function and the pathophysiology of pseudotumor cerebri. His main innovative research findings are: Head impulse testing of semicircular canal function (from Arch Neurol 1988;45:737 to Front Neurol 2020;11:732); Vestibular evoked myogenic potentials as a test of dynamic otolith function (from Neurology 1992; 43:1635 to Front Neurol 2020;11:580);  C) Conjugate ocular torsion and subjective visual horizontal as a test of static otolith function (from Ann Neurol 1979;6:80 to Acta Otolaryngol 2020;140:833);  D) Cerebellar Ataxia Vestibular Areflexia Syndrome (CANVAS) (from Brain 2004;127:280 to Otol Neurotol 2021 Jan 22); (E) mechanism of pseudotumor cerebri and its treatment with transverse sinus stenting (from Arch Neurol 1991;48:740 to J Neurointerv Surg 2016;Oct 8:e41).