A discovery made in collaboration with Yves De Koninck of the Neurophotonics Centre has been listed as one of the top 10 discoveries of 2016 by Québec Science, and is a candidate for the magazine's people's choice award for discovery of the year. This discovery, a collaboration between neuroscientists and physicists, offers hope for repair of nerve connections, and even a way to create new ones.  

The director of the Neurophotonics Centre, Yves De Koninck, will receive the Canadian Pain Society's 2017 Distinguished Career Award.  This award recognizes Dr. De Koninck's longstanding contributions to pain research.  The award will be given at the next Canadian Pain Society meeting, in May 2017 in Halifax.  

http://www.canadianpainsociety.ca/?page=AwardsGrant

Congratulations to Loïc Binan, who was named Étudiant-étoile des Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé for the month of December for his work on the development of a new single-cell tagging of live cells, work that was recently published in Nature Communications.  This technique, named CLaP, uses a laser to tag single living cells, thereby allowing researchers to follow specific cells during many days.  This technique has applications in research on cancer, cell therapy and neurobiology.

A delegation of three Ministers from the government of Québec, the Ministers Dominique Anglade, François Blais and Gaétan Barrette, visited the Neurophotonics Centre to announce an investment of almost $30 million in research in mental health.  This investment will finance the building of neurophotonics and imaging laboratories, of an animal facility and equipment, as announced by the Minister of Economy, Science and Innovation, Dominique Anglade.

Myelin plays an essential role in the brain and nervous system by facilitating communication between neurons. Disease that disrupt myelin, such as multiple sclerosis and Guillain-Barré syndrome, cause functional disabilities. However, myelin biology is not well characterized, as tools to describe the organization of myelin in live animals have been lacking.

A new publication shows that endocannabinoid signalling improves vision in low light conditions.  This paper builds on the old anecdotal reports (from Jamaica and Morocco) that marijuana smoking helped fisherman to see better at dusk when they went out fishing. (PMID: 15182912 , PMID: 2062365 ).

This year we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School. We wish to thank our speakers, instructors and tutors for their great work. And of course, our students for their enthusiasm and dedication. We are looking forward to another 10 years, or more!
View our photo gallery below.