Events
SleepWell Special Seminar
at A. I. Virtanen Institute, University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio, Finland.
Prof. Heikki Tanila obtained his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Helsinki, did his post-doc at State University of New York at Stony Brook, NY, USA, during 1993-1995, and since 1996 has been active in Kuopio. In 2011 he spent one year at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. He has 40 years of experience in experimental memory research. He has made major contribution in revealing age-related changes in hippocampal information processing of rats. More recently, his laboratory has studied the neural mechanisms of memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease using transgenic mice as models. His laboratory first showed memory enhancing effect of the latest Alzheimer drug memantine in a transgenic Alzheimer model mouse and the susceptibility of APP transgenic mice to seizures. He has over 240 peer-reviewed international publications and an H-index of 64. He has supervised 25 PhD and 32 MSc theses.
Relevant publications:
Jin N, Häkli S, Malathi K, Koivisto H, Boc T, Schimmel J, Castell-Caubet E, Gureviciene I, Tanila H. Refined division of sleep stages in the mouse based on distributed deep electrodes and underlying infra-slow oscillation. J Sleep Res. 2025 Dec 15:e70262.
Kamondi A, Löscher W, Tanila H, Grigg-Damberger M, Horváth A. Epilepsy and epileptiform activity in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease: Clinical and pathophysiological advances, gaps and conundrums. Nat Rev Neurol 2024;20(3):162-182.
Jin N, Gureviciene I, Atalay AN, Häkli S, Ziyatdinova S, Tanila H. Preclinical evaluation of drug treatment options for sleep-related epileptiform spiking in Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer’s & Dementia (NY) 2022;8:e12291.
Jin N, Lipponen A, Koivisto H, Gurevicius K, Tanila H. Increased cortical beta power and spike-wave discharges in middle-aged APP/PS1 mice. Neurobiol Aging 2018; 71:127-141.
Zhurakovskaya E, Ishchenko I, Gureviciene I, Aliev R, Gröhn O, Tanila H. Impaired hippocampal-cortical coupling but preserved local synchrony during sleep in APP/PS1 mice modeling Alzheimer’s disease. Sci Rep 2019; 9(1):5380.
Minkeviciene R, Rheims S, Dobszay MB, Zilberter M, Hartikainen J, Fülöp L, Penke B, Zilberter Y, Harkany T, Pitkänen A, Tanila H. Amyloid β-induced neuronal hyperexcitability triggers progressive epilepsy. J Neurosci 29: 3453-62, 2009.
Special seminar by Prof. Alistair Gunn
From discovery to standard of care: protecting the newborn brain
Alistair Jan Gunn, Professor of Physiology and Pediatrics at the University of Auckland, is an internationally recognised paediatrician-scientist whose work has fundamentally reshaped the care of infants at risk of brain injury around the time of birth.
Professor Gunn has led groundbreaking research into the mechanisms, detection, and treatment of asphyxial brain injury. His work spans the identification of compromised fetuses during labor, the pathophysiology of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and strategies to prevent life-threatening events in early infancy. Most notably, his research played a pivotal role in establishing therapeutic hypothermia (mild cooling) as the first effective neuroprotective treatment for newborns exposed to low oxygen levels at birth; a therapy that is now standard of care across all high-income countries.
In this lecture, Professor Gunn will describe the scientific journey that led to the development of cooling therapy, from experimental models to clinical trials and global implementation. He will then address a central and unresolved challenge in the field: why it has proven so difficult to further improve outcomes beyond hypothermia. The talk will conclude with an outlook on emerging directions, including improved fetal monitoring, combination neuroprotective strategies, and new insights into delayed brain injury.
Professor Gunn has authored more than 400 scientific publications and is the recipient of numerous international awards for his contributions to neonatal medicine and neuroscience.
Publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1LyGwvk1wFK/bibliography/40701211/public/?sort=date&direction=descending
Profile: https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/aj-gunn
Chairmen:
Prof. Samuli Rautava / Sampsa Vanhatalo
Host: Prof. Kai Kaila (kai.kaila@helsinki.fi)
Dissertation: Mari Kemppainen
Opponent: Professor Petri Kulmala, University of Oulu