This Special Section, appearing in Neurophotonics Volume 10 Issue 4 and Volume 11 Issue 1, was inspired by the Frontiers in Neurophotonics Symposium that was held in October 2022 in Québec City, Canada . This symposium was the sixth in a series of international conferences dedicated to the new frontiers in microscopy and neuroscience, co-organized […]

The latest edition of the Journal Neurophotonics (Volume 10 Issue 4) includes a special feature section “Frontiers in Neurophotonics”, edited by Yves De Koninck, Paul De Koninck, and Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal, View the content of the Special section (all articles available in Open Access):

Congratulations to Yves De Koninck, Director of the CERVO Research Centre, who recently won the Wilder Penfield Award, one of the Prix du Québec. Prix du Québec prizes are the highest distinction awarded by the Government of Québec in culture and science. They recognize the exceptional achievements of individuals who contribute to the development of […]

A recent study by Vanessa Li and colleagues, published in PNAS and carried out at the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital at McGill University, has revisited the early formation of visual system maps in the Xenopus optic tectum, using state-of-the-art optogenetic technologies to follow the emergence of retinotopic maps at subcellular resolution in the brains of living, […]

Congratulations to the four winners of the Frontiers in Neurophotonics Highlight video contest! The winners are Antoine Légaré (Paul De Koninck’s lab, Université Laval): Analyzing zebrafish tail movement using a high speed camera – View video (YouTube) Pankaj Gupta (Tim Murphy’s lab, UBC): Can we aid in stroke recovery? – View video (YouTube) Daniel Côté’s […]

Description The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves around the entire world. This situation has brought into focus the challenges now faced worldwide. As the economy begins to recover, we are exploring through real-world applications how optics & photonics address post-pandemic challenges head on. By attending this webinar, participate in a global discussion, learn from industry-driven […]

We are happy to announce that a recording of the satellite meeting “New avenues pursued by the Canadian Neurophotonics Platform/Optogenetics & Vectorology Foundry” presented at the 14th Annual Canadian Neuroscience Meeting August 26th, 2021 is now available on the Neurophotonics youtube channel. Check out the recording here:  Due to technical difficulties during the recording, the […]

Three episodes of Playing With Marbles are now available wherever you listen to your #podcasts. In this season of Playing With Marbles, you’ll hear from the 2019 recipients of Brain Canada’s Platform Support Grants – a funding program for research teams that are creating and/or enhancing centralized shared resources to increase access to equipment, expertise, […]

We are proud to announce that the 15th Edition of the Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School will take place June 12 – 22, 2022, in Québec city! All the information will be posted on the Frontiers in neurophotonics Summer School webpage

Congratulation to Jean-Nicolas Simard who wins a training offer by the ThéCell. ThéCell (http://www.reseauthecell.qc.ca) is a network which promote translational research in Tissular, Cellular and Genic Therapies in the Quebec province. The training constitute in 5 courses from the catalog of the Advanced Therapies Training Institute (CATTI) of CellCan which is specialized on practical aspect […]

Date: August 26, 2021 Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/can-neurophotonics-satellite-meeting-2021-tickets-162351422475 Cost: free Theme: New avenues pursued by the Canadian Neurophotonics Platform/Optogenetics & Vectorology Foundry Full program available here

Moderator: Jean-Claude Béïque Optimizing Primate Optogenetics Speaker: Sébastien Tremblay, Research Associate, Human Frontier Fellow, Dept of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania Marmoset Resources at McGill Speaker: Keith Murai, Director, Centre for Research in Neuroscience, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre  

Congratulations to Jeffrey LeDue from the NeuroImaging and NeuroComputation Centre at UBC for the 2021 Scientific Platform Award from the Canadian Network of Scientific Platforms (CNSP)! Watch Jeff’s presentation in the first 10 minutes of this session of the 2021 Scientific Platforms Meeting

Congratulations to Annie Castonguay, who wins the 1st prize of the Research Professionals Excellence Awards 2021, given by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé. Annie Castonguay holds a PhD in neurological sciences from Université de Montréal and carried out her postdoctoral training in neurobiology at Université Laval with financial support from the FRQS. […]

The ‘Frontiers in Neurophotonics Highlights’ will take place on every Tuesday of November (Nov 2 – 30, 2021) at 11 am Quebec time (EST); with short presentation blitz (4×10 mins + questions) for 1 hour total. The last ‘round table’ event will take place on Nov. 30 from 11am – 1 pm Quebec time (EST). […]

Congratulations to the winners of the Summer School awards: Mini-project presentations winners 1st prize: Owen Ferguson and Antoine Légaré (Optogenetics in vivo with the optrode)  2nd prize: Sébastien Jerczynski (In vivo photometry) 3rd prize: Louis-Philippe Guinard (STED microscopy) Best Teaching Assistant: Andréanne Deschênes Congratulations to all the prize winners! Would you like to know more about the Summer […]

The recording of the second Global Resources Seminar, recorded May 5, 2021 is now available on Youtube: Speaker 1: Jonathan Ting, Affiliate Assistant Professor, Physiology and Biophysics Dept Affiliate Scientist WA National Primate Research Center University of Washington, Seattle WA Talk title: Advances in Human and Non-Human Primate Cellular Neuroscience Research at the Allen Institute Speaker […]

Olympus is proud to announce our next virtual event, the Olympus Discovery Summit—Looking Forward: A New Era of Research. During this event, we will cover emerging technologies , best practices for a post-pandemic workplace, and next-generation models for research. With presentations including customer presentations and tech talks , this is a great opportunity to touch […]

View the first seminar of the Global Resources Seminar Series, recorded March 9, 2021. Clifford Kentros (Kavli Institute, Norway) tells us about the use of Enhancer-Driven Gene Expression (EDGE) to design genetic tools for the study of native neural circuits Artur Kania (IRCM, Montreal) presents the molecular logic of Phox2a spinal projection neuron relay of […]

Brain Canada is pleased to announce the awarding of a $4,275,000 2019 Platform Support Grant (PSG) to Dr. Yves De Koninck and team members from across the county for the Canadian Optogenetics and Vectorology Foundry, a consortium of research sites that aims to accelerate the development and dissemination of optogenetic and viral tools. Brain Canada’s […]

Read this publication by Céline Larivière-Loiselle, Erik Bélanger and Pierre Marquet, that made the cover of the latest edition of the journal Neurophotonics. Larivière-Loiselle C, Bélanger E, Marquet P. Polychromatic digital holographic microscopy: a quasicoherent-noise-free imaging technique to explore the connectivity of living neuronal networks. Neurophotonics. 2020 Oct;7(4):040501. doi: 10.1117/1.NPh.7.4.040501. Epub 2020 Oct 16. Erratum […]

Congratulations to Armen Saghatelyan and his team who published today in Cell an article demonstrating the role of light and calcium ions in the activation of neural stem cells in adulthood. Read the original scientific article in Cell: A. Gengatharan, Malvaut, S., Marymonchyk, A., Ghareghani, M., Snapyan, M., Fischer-Sternjak, J., Ninkovic, J., Götz, M., et Saghatelyan, A.,  Adult neural stem cell activation in mice is […]

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS! In partnership with the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge Campus Alberta Neuroscience is pleased to offer its eighth annual Introductory Workshop on Computational Methods in Neuroscience online from May 11-21, 2021. The goal of this 11-day workshop is to improve the educational experience of Alberta neuroscience trainees and increase […]

Marie-Ève Paquet will present the Canadian Neurophotonics Platform at the Neuro-Gairdner Open Science in Action Symposium on November 12, 2020. Organised by The Neuro and the Gairdner Foundation, this virtual two-day symposium will bring together global leaders in Open Science including researchers, patient advocates, policy-makers, funders, industry, philanthropic organizations, and science communicators for critical exchange […]

Press release from the Society for Neuroscience 2020-10-29 The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will present Yves De Koninck, PhD, and Liqun Luo, PhD, with this year’s Awards for Education in Neuroscience. The award honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to neuroscience education and training and will be presented during SfN’s Awards Announcement Week 2020. […]

Thursday, July 30, 2020 VTA DA Transients regulate temporal-difference learning Mihaela Iordanova, Associate Professor, Dept of Psychology, Concordia University Novel optogenetic tools to investigate pannexin-1 signaling in the CNS Alex Lohman, Assistant Professor, Cell Biology & Anatomy, University of Calgary, Hotchkiss Brain Institute

View the recording of both presentations here:

The recording of Mark Brandon’s talk, part of the Neuro Light Lunch seminar series is available here:  

View the first Neuro Light Lunch, recorded on July 9, 2020. Join us for our next Neuro Light Lunch talks, Thursdays at 12PM EDT: July 16 Mark Brandon (Douglas) and Matilde Balbi (UBC/Queensland) July 23 Kaspar Podgorski (Janelia/SickKids) and Ahmed Abdelfattah (Janelia) July 30 Mihaela Iordanova (Concordia U) and Alex Lohman (U Calgary)

On behalf of the Canadian Neurophotonics Platform, I’m pleased to announce  “Neuro Light Lunch” four-week seminar series.  Every Thursday, starting July 9 at noon EDT we will be hosting a pair of 30 min talks from up-and-coming leaders in the Canadian neurophotonics community.   To tune in please use the following link on ZOOM:  https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/96011792389 (Meeting ID: […]

Read a recent Nature Spotlight article which highlights the Neurophotonics Centre and Summer School. The director of the Neurophotonics Centre, Yves De Koninck, is interviewed on the topic of large-scale national brain research projects, and explains the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to understand this complex organ: To build and use those tools, researchers require […]

Congratulations to the 2019 Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer school prize winners: Winners of the best mini-projects prizes: Gregory S. Wirak et Shuce Zhang , 1st place winners: Multimodal Digital Holographic Microscopy to Resolve Neuronal Network Activity Lindsey M. Brier, Evangelia Semizoglou, Tom Venneman (with Tutor: Feng Wang) 2nd place winners: Imaging spinal cord microglia Taylor […]

The activities of the 2019 Summer Neurophotonics Institute of the CERVO research center will begin shortly. What is the Summer Neurophotonics Institute? It is an opportunity to attend, on Tuesdays at noon, tutorials about research that is done at the CERVO center. These tutorials will help you understand the basics of brain research and facilitate […]

THE PROJECT Fluorescence is a prominent trait of Great Barrier Reef corals, colouring their tissues with a variety of proteins of the GFP (green fluorescent protein) family. These proteins are some of the most widely known fluorescent markers used to identify gene and protein expression and dynamics. Their function in marine organisms is still poorly […]

You are invited to participate in this bootcamp, which will take place 26 – 28 February 2019 at Forêt Montmorency. Registration is open until February 15. Under the initiative of the CREATE-SMAART and Sentinel North programs at Université Laval, this bootcamp offers students a unique opportunity to interact with top level scientists as part of […]

New research published in Cell Reports demonstrates that a molecule best known for its role as an axon guidance cue in the developing brain called netrin-1 plays a critical role in the strengthening of connections, called synapses, between neurons in the adult brain.  This strengthening of connections, called long-term potentiation was demonstrated to require netrin-1in […]

Read a recent article in Le Soleil newspaper about Zilia, a company commercializing a new tool for early diagnosis of several eye conditions, including glaucoma and macular degeneration. Zilia, formerly known as Retnia, employs four students/alumni from the CERVO research centre,  Cleophace Akitegetse (PhD), Jasmine Poirier (MSc), Nicolas Lapointe and Damon De Paoli (PhD). The […]

Congratulations to the following Summer School participants on winning our awards! Best presentations: 1st prize:  In vivo optogenetics (Tutor: Cyril Bories)   Students : Donald Iain MacDonald and Spencer Loewen 2nd place: FRET-FLIM (Tutors: Annie Castonguay, Kapil Sehgal, and Antoine Godin)   Students : Andrew Boyce and Felipe Nunes Vicente 3rd place: Fiber photometry (Tutors Christophe Proulx […]

Congratulations to Yves De Koninck, who will be awarded the 2019 Emily M Gray Award from the Biophysical Society (BPS) on March 4, 2019. De Koninck will be honored at the Society’s 63rd Annual Meeting at the Baltimore Convention Center on March 4, 2019, during the annual BPS Awards and Lecture Presentation. De Koninck will […]

Two members of the Neurophotonics Centre, Yves De Koninck and Daniel Côté are part of a team of researchers, which also includes researchers from the Centre d’optique, photonique et lasers (COPL), who was awarded the 2018 Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering. A unique team of researchers at Université Laval’s Cervo […]

Steve arrived at the Centre a little more than a month ago, and will be working here 2 days a week; on Wednesdays and Thursdays. You can see him at the electronic workshop on the 6th floor (F-6478) or get in touch with him by phone (4719) or via email (steve.forest@cervo.ulaval.ca) Welcome to the Neurophotonics […]

Congratulations to Damon DePaoli who won the prize for “Best overall poster presentation at the Canadian Neuromodulation Society 10th Annual Scientific Meeting, which took place in Whistler British Columbia February 4-6, 2018.  Damon DePaoli, a PhD student in Daniel Côté’s laboratory, won this award for his poster titled “Fiber-based tissue identification for electrode placement in […]

Congratulations to the 2017 Neurophotonics Summer School Award winners! Student prizes: 1st place: Energy consumption and organelles dynamics: Elisa York Tied in second place: Optogenetics/optrode: Andrew Mocle, Patrick Steadman, Sahara Khademullah DHM: Vicky Staikopoulos Best Teaching Assistants: Cyril Bories Jimena Perez-Sanchez Simon Labrecque Best Demo: The fishing team: Cynthia Solek Ed Ruthazer Congratulations to our […]

On Sunday June 11th, 2017, Scientifica opened its first Centre of Excellence in the Neurophotonics Centre. We celebrated this important collaboration with members of the Scientifica team in a reception at the Neurophotonics Centre, with members of the Neurophotonics team and the 2017 Summer school attendees. Phil Golding, Scientifica’s General Manager for North America, announced […]

The 11th Edition of the Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School is taking place June 11 to the 21! View some of our pictures here, and even more on our Facebook page.

The Canadian Neurophotonics Platform held a satellite and a trainee meeting before the Canadian Neuroscience meeting. Organized by Platform leader Ed Ruthazer, both events were great opportunities to network and highlight the research supported by the platform. The trainee meeting, held on the evening of May 27th at the Montreal Neurological Institute, brought together many […]

Congratulations to Gabriel Gagnon-Turcotte, electrical engineering student, who received the Jury Prize scholarship for excellence in graduate studies from the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ). This prestigious prize was given to him by the Vice-President of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec Foundation (FOIQ), Mrs. Anne Baril, during the excellence in engineering gala on […]

Sentinel North also seeks to recruit outstanding young researchers at UL through a series of doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships that encourage the development of the experts needed to address the complex challenges and opportunities of the changing North. These excellence scholarships are offered to Canadian and international students willing to start or pursue research projects […]

As part of Sentinel North (SN), the office of the Vice Rector of Research and Innovation at Université Laval (UL) is investing $3 million over five years (2017 to 2022) in a first competition for new research chairs. The SN research chair program aims to attract both accomplished and promising new researchers to UL to […]

Yves De Koninck recently gave an interview to Le Soleil newspaper about an important discovery published in Nature Medicine which offers new hope to people suffering from dependency to morphine and fentanyl. In the interview, Yves De Koninck indicates that the discovery his team participated in could help people get out of their dependent state […]

Olympus Canada Inc. and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute Research Centre are pleased to invite you to the Olympus Discovery Center Inauguration Day that will be held at the Douglas Institute on March 17, 2017. Although this is a neuroscience event, everyone is welcome to attend the Keynote Speaker’s Seminar: Dr. Timothy H. Murphy, […]

The NeuroSymposium is an inter-university scientific event that gathers graduate neuroscience students from across Québec. This year marks the second edition of the event which will be held on June 15th 2017 at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec’s Grande Bibliothèque, a landmark of culture and knowledge in the heart of Montréal. Organized by […]

Congratulations to Canadian Neurophotonics Platform researcher André Longtin and collaborator Leonard Maler, both at University of Ottawa, who were awarded the NSERC Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering.   From the NSERC website: André Longtin and Leonard Maler have combined their expertise in physics, mathematics and neurobiology to reveal key features […]

The SfN Quebec city chapter is proud to announce that Caroline Dallaire-Théroux, PhD candidate in neurobiology, from Dr. Simon Duchesne’s laboratory, has won a travel award for the upcoming Canadian Association for Neuroscience (CAN) annual meeting. Congratulations to Caroline who will represent the Quebec city chapter at the CAN meeting.    

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

The research centre of the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Québec (CRIUSMQ), affiliated with Université Laval, is seeking applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor positions that can begin as early as July 2017. This recruitment is made possible by the remarkable growth of the research centre in the recent years, and several major initiatives […]

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. New research from the […]

Rémi Quirion, Québec’s chief scientist, has announced the launch the tenth edition of the Étudiants-chercheurs étoiles awards, which are handed out by the three Fonds de recherche du Québec. The deadline to submit an application is September 1, 2016. More information on the competition is available on the Web sites of the Fonds: Nature et […]

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 ). Researchers used a range of techniques, from electrophysiology, to […]

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.

Congratulations to the students who made the top three presentations for the 2016 Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School mini-projects: First prize winners: Irene Lecker and Valérie Van Steenbergen for their project: ‘STED imaging’ Second prize winners: David Lidenbach, Matilde Balbi, and Rochelin Dalangin for their project: ‘In vitro optogenetics with the optrode’ Third prize winners: Samantha […]

The Canadian Neurophotonics Platform held two events in Toronto, in conjunction with the 2016 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting. The first event, a data blitz by student members of the Canadian Neurophotonics Platform, took place at the Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning at SickKids Hospital on the evening of May 28th. The second event was […]

Congratulations to Damon DePaoli, who won the first prize for best poster presentation at the Photonics North Symposium, held in Québec May 24 – 26 2016. Damon is a Master’s student in Daniel Côté’s laboratory.

Montreal Light Microscopy Course This year’s 5-day advanced level MLMC 2016 Frontiers: Multi-Dimensional Microscopy course will be held from August 15-19, 2016, and we sincerely hope you will join us at McGill University in Montreal. Download the MLMC 2016 Program » Keynote Lecture: Julie A. Theriot, PhD, Biochemistry and Microbiology & Immunology, from Stanford University […]

The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, announced the appointment of two new research chairs in optics-photonics at Université Laval, in the presence of  her colleagues the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, and Joël Lightbound, Member of Parliament for Louis-Hébert, of Mario Pinto, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering […]

Congratulations to Gabriel Gagnon-Turcotte, Masters student in the laboratory of professor Benoît Gosselin from the Department of electrical engineering and computer engineering, for winning the Mitacs 2015 prize for exceptional innovation, in the Master’s student category.  The prize was given for the development of an optogenetic wireless system to stimulate a specific region of the […]

The Sentinel North strategy, which was awarded a historic amount of 98 million dollars through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, was the subject of a recent article in Le Devoir newspaper.  In this article, Yves De Koninck and Marcel Babin, Scientific Co-Directors of Sentinel North, explain the fundamentally transdisciplinary nature of the approaches proposed […]

Congratulations to Canadian Neurophotonics Platform researcher Robert Campbell, who was recently awarded the 2015 Rutherford memorial medal in Chemistry by the Royal Society of Canada. From the Royal Society announcement: Robert Campbell is an international authority on the development and application of fluorescent proteins for live cell imaging. He has developed many innovative biochemical imaging […]

The 2015 Frontiers in Neurophotonics Symposium (FINS2015) was an opportunity to celebrate the tenth anniversary of optogenetics research in neuroscience.  Ten years ago, channelrhodopsin-2 was expressed in neurons and shown to control their activity in a landmark paper Karl Deisseroth and his team published in Nature Neuroscience – Millisecond-timescale, genetically targeted optical control of neural activity. […]

Campbell Laboratory (campbellweb.chem.ualberta.ca) A postdoctoral researcher position focussed on the development of a new generation of genetically encoded neural activity indicators is available in the lab of Dr. Robert E. Campbell at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. This position is funded by an NIH grant awarded as part of the United States Brain Research through Advancing […]

Professor Daniel Côté will receive 489 299 $ from the Quebec Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et des Exportations, BLIQc inc., CRIUSMQ and SOVAR to valorize three technologies to improve microscopy systems for multimodal molecular imaging of the living.  Côté and his colleagues at Université Laval and the CRIUSMQ have conceived technologies that make microscopic data […]

Congratulations to the Director of the Neurophotonics Centre, Yves De Koninck for his recent appointment to the Royal Society of Canada. He was named member of this prestigious Society in recognition of “seminal contributions to understanding how neurons communicate at the cellular and molecular levels, in normal and pathological pain. Equally ground-breaking are his contributions […]

The largest research subsidy in the history of Université Laval, an imposing 98 millions $ over seven years, will support researchers, and allow the creation of the Sentinel North research initiative.   Sentinel North represents an unprecedented strategy in the history of northern research in Canada. This scientific initiative from Université Laval is based on […]

The Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School is a unique opportunity for a small class of highly motivated students to spend 10 days learning and working hands-on with the highly qualified personnel of the Neurophotonics Centre in Québec city. During this very intense workshop, students hear lectures from world experts in neuroscience and optics, and use […]

Dr. Yves De Koninck has been named Director of Research of the  Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux (CIUSSS) de la Capitale-Nationale. For more information, read the  Press release.

Université de Montréal has given an honorary doctorate to Dr. Yves De Koninck for his exceptional contribution to the field of neuroscience and pain treatment.   Dr. Guy Breton, Rector of Université de Montréal, highlighted the visionnary aspect of the interdisciplinary research done by Dr. De Koninck when he gave him the honorary degree : Dr. […]

We have just been informed of important changes regarding the travel awards for SfN chapters. New this year, chapters will no longer submit nominations, but instead the potential awardees will need to self-nominate on SfN.org. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral trainees are invited to apply for a Trainee Professional Development Award directly at SfN.org. […]

Major renovations are planned to the Molecular tools culture rooms and will require the shutting down of viral vector production for the month of June, while improvements to the facilities are underway. Production of molecular constructs will not be interrupted by the renovations. Please plan ahead of time and place your orders early!  Please note […]

The Science and Engineering Faculty at Université Laval recently launched the LAB en ligne website, which is a directory of equipment and installations available to the scientific community at Université Laval. From the  LAB en ligne website (in French only): Le LAB en ligne est un espace virtuel permettant de rassembler l’inventaire des équipements et […]

Congratulation to Robert Bonin, post-doctoral researcher in Yves De Koninck’s laboratory, who was named “étudiant-chercheur du mois” for March 2015 by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé. The award was given for the publication of: A Spinal Analogue of Memory Reconsolidation Enables Reversal of Hyperalgesia, published in : Nature Neuroscience, vol. 17, onlin […]

The Premier of Québec, Philippe Couillard, visited our colleagues at the Institut d’optique d’Aquitaine on February 5, 2015.  During this visit, he met with Antoine Godin, who is doing a post-doc in Bordeaux about his research on neurology.   Dr. Godin is graduate of the Neurophysics Graduate Program. Pictures of Mr Couillard’s visit to the […]

Neurolinks is a free networking event for companies and students working in the area aof neuroscience and biophotonics.  This event gives all participants a unique opportunity to increase their professional network (companies and funding organisms). The third edition of the Neurolinks Career Day took place February 24th at the Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire […]

Members of the Neurophotonics Centre have published a new robust and rapid approach to simplify polarimetric measurements in second-harmonic generation, two-photon excited fluorescence and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering. The technique consists of adding a second properly oriented compensation dichroic to negate any scrambling of the polarization by polarimetric microscopy. Erik Bélanger and Raphaël Turcotte are […]

A team lead by Frédéric Leblond, Professor at Polytechnique Montréal, and Kevin Petrecca, Chief neurosurgeon at the McGill University Health Centre, with collaborators at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University and the MUHC has developped a new probe that can detect cancer cells in the brain with a precision higher than the existing technology. The […]

Dr. Robert Campbell, from the University of Alberta, recently published an article in Nature Methods in which he describes novel biosensors that change color in response to specific biological event.  This innovation is described in an article published by University of Alberta  titled: “Colour-changing proteins shed light on inner workings of live cells -Fluorescent proteins […]

The ACFAS – Association francophone pour le savoir is holding its annual scientific image contest, and the prize for the 2015 International Year of Light will be awarded to images that illustrate the nature of light or the interaction between light and matter. Researchers are invited to submit their images by January 26th 2015. All […]

Researchers Armen Saghatelyan, Paul and Yves De Koninck and Daniel Côté were recently featured on “Découverte”, the scientific television show presented by Radio-Canada.  The researchers explain the possibilities and promises of new neurophotonics approaches and technologies to better understand the brain, leading to major scientific breakthroughs. View the segment here: http://ici.radio-canada.ca/tele/decouverte/2014-2015/segments/reportage/493/illuminer-cerveau

The Neurophotonics Centre hosted the Launch meeting for the Canadian Neurophotonics Platform on December 16-17 2014 in Québec city.  The platform aims to develop, test and promote new neurophotonics tools using the power of optics and and photonics to serve research in neurosciences and the brain. The lauch meeting was a great opportunity for platform […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”686″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image wp-image-1749 size-thumbnail”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Evstratova, T\u00f3th and Chamberland”}}]] Evstratova, Tóth and Chamberland Dr Katalin Tóth and her team recently published a paper in Nature Communications in which they explain, in part, how seemingly identical synaptic vesicles can be used to transmit different messages from one neuron to the next. These researchers showed that vesicles derived from the […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”684″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-thumbnail wp-image-1744″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”120″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Bretzner”}}]] Frédéric Bretzner [[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”685″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image wp-image-1036 size-thumbnail”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Yves De Koninck – photo Marc Robitaille”}}]] Yves De Koninck – photo Marc Robitaille Two outstanding researchers from Université Laval, Frédéric Bretzner for 2013 and Yves DeKoninck for 2014, have won Barbara Turnbull awards for spinal cord research.  This prize is supported through a partnership between the […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”683″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image alignright wp-image-1727 size-thumbnail”,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”CCWiP poster”}}]] The Canadian Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CCUWiP) is a conference for physics students held at Laval University JANUARY 9-11, 2015. The main objective of this event is to highlight the success of women in a domain where men outnumber them, to encourage exchange with other students who have […]

Neurophotonics expert Karl Deisseroth visited McGill University last week and his lecture, titled “Optical Deconstruction of Fully-assembled Biological Systems” is currently available for viewing on the McGill Neuro website. The Hughlings Jackson Lecture is the Neuro’s premier scientific lecture and took place on October 17, 2014 at 4:00 pm at the Neuro. Dr. Karl Deisseroth, […]

Interested in understanding the microscopy advances that lead to the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry? Beyond the diffraction barrier is a new video overview of super-resolution microscopy strategies, by Andrew Q Tran, student in Biomedical Communication at University of Toronto. It explains techniques such as stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, developed by 2014 Nobel prize […]

The Photonics games, organized to interest high school students to physics and photonics received important recognition recently. The organizers of the games were honored with a prize at the Gala universitaire Forces AVENIR. Forces AVENIR is a non-profit organisation who aims to highlight student involvement. Read more about this in Le Fil. The Photonics games […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”680″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-medium wp-image-1636″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”300″,”height”:”189″,”alt”:”See Leang Chin seated at right of image”}}]] See Leang Chin seated at right of image (photo Marc Robitaille) Recently retired professor See Leang Chin has been named Emeritus professor by the Faculty of Science and Engineering of Université Laval on September 25 2014. The Emeritus professor status is the highest honour the […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”679″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-thumbnail wp-image-1623″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Simon Chamberland”}}]] The Quebec Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience is proud to announce that Simon Chamberland has won a travel award for the upcoming SfN meeting, November 15-19 in Washington, DC. The prize includes free registration to the meeting. Simon Chamberland is a neurobiology graduate student in the laboratory of Katalin Toth. […]

The research center of the Quebec Mental Health Institute (Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Québec – IUSMQ), in partnership with other Canadian institutions, will receive 3,3M$ from the Canadian Brain Research Fund to develop and manage the Canadian Neurophotonics Platform, over the next 3 years. The platform will be managed by the Research Centre […]

In a special section of the newspaper Le Devoir published for the 50 years of the “Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé”, FRQS, Yves De Koninck explains the importance of this funding agency for Quebec researchers, and the advantage it gives then at the national and international level. Read the full article in the […]

Listen to a recent interview with Jean-Martin Beaulieu, who recently won the 2014 IMHRO / Johnson & Johnson Rising Star Translational Research Award. He explains his research and his aim to develop safer, targeted mood stabilizing drugs by testing, in cell culture and in mice, small molecules which his past research suggests might replicate the […]

The recent discoveries by Robert Bonin and Yves De Koninck are featured on PBS’s Nova Next website.  The article features interviews with pain specialists Allan Basbaum, from the University of California, San Francisco and Ted Price, from University of Texas-Dallas, in addition to Université Laval’s De Koninck.  Read the article on the Nova Next website, or read […]

Listen to Yves De Koninck in conversation with Kerri Smith explain the recent publication by Bonin and De Koninck in Nature Neuroscience. The segment begins at 13:15 in the player below, or go to the Nature website to select the third segment directly.

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”677″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-thumbnail wp-image-1569″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Jean Martin Beaulieu”}}]] Jean Martin Beaulieu, Photo: Frédéric Cantin Congratulations to Jean Martin Beaulieu who was recently awarded an IMHRO/Johnson & Johnson Rising Star Award, accompanied by a $250 000 grant over 3 years. Read more in Le Fil, Université Laval’s community newspaper. (French only)

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”676″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-thumbnail wp-image-1037″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Yves De Koninck”}}]] Yves De Koninck Photo: Marc Robitaille A study published in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience by Yves De Koninck and Robert Bonin, two researchers at Université Laval, reveals that it is possible to relieve pain hypersensitivity using a new method that involves rekindling pain so that it can subsequently be […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”678″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image alignleft size-medium wp-image-1457″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”300″,”height”:”200″,”alt”:”10470923_660585097364988_5498245926556749155_n”}}]]The annual retreat of the members of the Neurophysics research group was held at the Forêt Montmorency, June 19 and 20 2014. Picture of the event are available on the Neurophotonics Centre Facebook page.

The three teams that made the best presentations at the “Frontiers in Neurophotonics” Summer School were awarded a prize. The winners are: Sabrina Tazerart and Matthew Parsons (first place) Qiuqiang Zhan, Arutyun Bagramyan, and Joey Grochmal (second place) Jonathan Bumstead and Fadwa Joud (third place) We wish to congratulate the winners for their excellent work, […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”671″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-medium wp-image-1533″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”300″,”height”:”204″,”alt”:”Yves De Koninck, Marc Bergeron, Sam David”}}]] Yves De Koninck, Marc Bergeron, Sam David Marc Bergeron received the Marlene Reimer Brain Star of the year award at the 8th Annual Canadian Association for Neuroscience meeting. This award is given to the highest ranking Brain Star Award of the year. Brain Star awards are […]

Congratulations to Guillaume Lavertu, doctoral student at Université Laval with Yves De Koninck, who was named Star student by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé for the month of May. Highlighted article: Enhancing K–Cl co-transport restores normal spinothalamic sensory coding in a neuropathic pain model Published in: BRAIN, 137; 724-738, 2014.

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”633″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-full wp-image-1522″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”75″,”height”:”75″,”alt”:”Lorenzo”}}]] Lorenzo [[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”634″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-full wp-image-1523″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”75″,”height”:”75″,”alt”:”Wang”}}]] Wang and Bélanger Two pictures by our trainees are amongst the finalists for the image contest “La preuve par l’image” organized by ACFAS: “Un portrait de la douleur”, by Louis-Étienne Lorenzo, and “Dans le vif du sujet” by Feng Wang and Erik Bélanger. You can view the images, […]

Découvrir, the magazine of the Association Francophone pour le Savoir (ACFAS), published an interview recently about chronic pain with Quebec Pain Research Network founder Yves De Koninck. Read the interview on the ACFAS website: http://www.acfas.ca/publications/decouvrir/2014/05/douleur-chronique-sort-silence

The Beauport express was present for the event titled «24h de science» during which the Neurophotonics Centre, and the Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale, opened its doors to the public. Journalist Alison Charland published a report on her visit in the newspaper: http://www.beauportexpress.com/ The Open House was held for Mental Health week. The general public […]

We are proud to announce that Francesco Ferrini and Marc Bergeron are amongst the top three Brain Star Awardees for 2013. Both researchers are recognized for work that was done in Yves De Koninck’s laboratory, published in 2013, in Nature Neuroscience (Ferrini, Trang et al.) and in Nature Medicine (Gagnon, Bergeron, et al.) The CIHR-INMHA […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”670″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-thumbnail wp-image-1459″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Daniel C\u00f4t\u00e9″}}]] Daniel Côté – crédit photo Marc Robitaille Daniel Côté is part of a team on international researchers who have located blood stem cells within the bone marrow, in a study published recently in Nature. Read an article by Jean Hamann in Le Fil de l’université Laval about this story (in French): […]

Yves De Koninck, Director of the Neurophotonics Centre, discusses the process of finding the right candidate to fill the Canada Excellence Research Chair awarded to the Centre in the latest issue of University Affairs. Read the article by Mark Cardwell here: Super CERC me! The whole issue is available here: University Affairs – April 2014 […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”669″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-medium wp-image-1425″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”225″,”height”:”300″,”alt”:”Image from C\u00f4t\u00e9 lab makes the cover of Biophotonics”}}]] An image from Côté lab makes the cover of Biophotonics Biophotonics magazine features an image by Erik Bélanger, Sophie Laffray and Daniel Côté on its January 2014 cover, and also features an article about CARS microscopy, a technique used at the Neurophotonics center for […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”653″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-thumbnail wp-image-1398″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Yves De Koninck in studio”}}]] Picture from cbc.ca Listen to a recent interview with Yves De Koninck in which he explains the importance of the new drug tests that will soon start in the collaboration between Roche and Université Laval. The very promising drugs being tested were discovered over the last ten years […]

Work done by Yves De Koninck and his team has lead to the identification of novel compounds that could be used to treat many neurological disorders. A new phase in the development of new drugs based on these discoveries is beginning following the announcement that the pharmaceutical company Roche has reached an agreement with Université […]

View a video of Yves De Koninck (below – in French) explaining his discovery, read the article in Québec Science about it, and then vote for this important discovery, which could be named discovery of the year for 2013. (You will find the link to vote for this discovery at the end of the article […]

Two major discoveries made by Yves De Koninck and his team in 2013, which built on previous important discoveries from his laboratory, could bring relief to patients suffering from chronic pain and could even further our understanding of other neurological diseases, such as epilepsy, anxiety and even schizophrenia.  This work is recognized as one the […]

An article published in Nature Neuroscience in January 2013 by Yves De Koninck and his collaborators is recognized as one of the top ten discoveries of 2013 by the magazine Quebec Science.  We invite you to read the story here: Québec Science (in French only), and to then vote for this story, which could be named […]

Yves De Koninck was named personality of the week La Presse – Radio-Canada, in recognition of his recent discoveries published in Nature Medecine, the Jacques-Rousseau prize for multidisciplinarity awarded to him by ACFAS and his nomination as Scientific Director of the Quebec Mental Health Institute (Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Québec – ISUMQ). Read […]

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”651″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image alignright size-medium “,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”100″,”alt”:”_MRP5188″}}]]Yves De Koninck crédit: Marc Robitaille photo Professor Yves De Koninck has been named Scientific Director of the Quebec Mental Health Institute (QMHI). More information about this important news can be found on the QMHI-IUSMQ website (in French)

Yves De Koninck, Director and Founder of the Neurophotonics Centre, was awarded the 2013 Jacques-Rousseau prize by the Association francophone pour le savoir – ACFAS. This prize recognizes excellence in multidisciplinary research, demonstrated in Dr. De Koninck’s approach to neuroscience, which combines physics, computational science, biochemistry, and advanced microscopy, which is highly collaborative in nature […]

The Canada Foundation for Innovation produced a video about the Neurophotonics Centre featuring an interview with Yves De Koninck, in which he explains how neurophotonics techniques are used to understand chronic pain, and could also be used eventually to treat this condition. In French.

A recent feature article in University Affairs explains how a neurophotonics research powerhouse was developed at Université Laval thanks to the leadership and vision of brothers Paul and Yves De Koninck.

Canadians for Health Research (CHR), a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of health research named Yves De Koninck researcher of the month for July 2013. CHR recognized Dr. De Koninck for his ground-breaking work in the area of pain research and for his commitment to ensure the ‘silent epidemic’ of chronic pain is […]

On June 17th and 18th was held the 2013 Neurophysics Retreat at La Forêt Montmorency. Nearly 80 professors, researchers and students from the Centre de recherche de l’Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Québec (CRIUSMQ), McGill University and the Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont took advantage of the relaxed and friendly atmosphere of the place to get acquainted, […]

Dr. Martin Parent recently received the Jacques-Leblanc prize which recognizes teaching excellence and strong involvement in student training. This prize is given by the ACCEM, the association of graduate students of the Université Laval Faculty of Medicine. Congratulations to Dr. Parent!

The first Neurolinks Career Day was held May 16th, 2013, at the CRIUSMQ. This unique networking event for neuroscience and biophotonics students was organised jointly by NanoULaval and the CRIUSMQ.

[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”media_large”,”fid”:”646″,”attributes”:{“class”:”media-image size-thumbnail wp-image-631″,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”,”style”:””,”width”:”150″,”height”:”150″,”alt”:”Dr. Martin Desch\u00eanes”}}]] Dr. Martin Deschênes Martin Deschênes and collaborators explain how whisking and sniffing are coordinated in the rat brain in a recent article published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature. Understanding how such processes are controlled in rats helps researchers better understand other rhythmic activity in the brain, such as those […]

The 4th edition of the Open House for CEGEP students was held on April 17th 2013 at the Research Centre of the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Québec (IUSMQ).

Neurophotonics expert Dr. Daniel Côté is collaborating with brain anatomy specialist Dr.Martin Parent and neurosurgeon Dr.Leo Cantin to develop novel neurosurgery tools through the use of fiber optics. This team made of specialists from the “Institut universitaire de santé mentale de Québec” and Université Laval expect their efforts to produce usable tools by three years. […]

The Neurophotonics Centre has been awarded one of only 11 Canada Excellence Research Chairs in the country, each worth up to $10 million dollars over 7 years.

On January 23-24, 2013, PIs of the Neurophysics training program had a joint meeting at McGill University with mentors of the training programs in Biophotonics and Neuroengineering, both financially supported by NSERC’s CREATE program. Discussions focused primarily on developing new collaborations amongst the 3 groups, as well as brainstorming over new financing strategies to ensure […]