Past Plenary and Medal Lecture Speakers

 

2023 Brisbane

Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Prof Marcello Rosa, (Monash University)

International Plenary Lecture - A/Prof Saul Villeda, (University of California, San Francisco)

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture - Prof Elizabeth Coulson, (The University of Queensland)

ANS Plenary Lecture - Prof Michael Breakspear, (University of Newcastle)

Eccles Plenary Lecture - Prof George Paxinos, (Neuroscience Research Australia)

 

2022 Melbourne 

Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Prof Anthony Hannan (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) - Gene-environment interactions modulating brain function within and between generations 

International Plenary Lecture - Professor Tara Spires-Jones, (University of Edinburgh) - Imaging synaptic changes in Alzheimer’s disease 

Eccles Plenary - Prof Christopher Lind, (University of Western Australia) - Neurosurgery on the experimental spectrum 

ANS Plenary - Prof Helen Cooper, (Queensland Brain Institute) - Deciphering the role of autism genes in cortical development: from stem cells to synapses 

2021 Online

ANS Plenary Lecture – Prof Bernard Balleine, (University of New South Wales) - The cortical and striatal circuits subserving goal-directed action

AW Campbell Award Lecture - Dr Christina Mo, (University of Chicago) -Transthalamic cortical pathways - underappreciated routes of information processing

Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Prof Linda Richards, (Queensland Brain Institute) - Wiring the brain for interhemispheric communication

Eccles Plenary Lecture - Prof Lars Ittner, (Macquarie University) - On the role of the tau protein in Alzheimer's disease and beyond

Nina Kondelos Plenary Lecture - Prof Elizabeth Coulson, (Queensland Brain Institut)e - Causes and consequences of cholinergic degeneration with a focus on dementia

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Prof Clare Parish, (Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health) - Next generation stem cells therapies for Parkinson’s Disease

International Plenary Lecture - Nobel Laureate, Prof Edvard Moser - Neural population dynamics of the entorhinal cortex

 

2020 Online

Eccles Lecture - Kate Drummond (Royal Melbourne Hospital) – Quality of life in brain tumour patients do we understand it and what can we do about it?

2020 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Robyn Brown (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) - Why do we overeat? Unravelling the neural mechanisms underlying maladaptive eating behaviour

2020 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote – Kay Double (University of Sydney)(presented by Ben Trist) - Hiding in plain sight – what does a new pathology mean for Parkinson’s disease?

2019 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Philip Ryan (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health )(presented in 2020) - The neurocircuitry of fluid satiation

2019 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote - Erica Fletcher (University of Melbourne) (presented in 2020) – The role of microglia in regulating retinal homeostasis

 

2019 Adelaide  

ANS Plenary Lecture – Jose Manuel Alonso (State University of New York) - Chiaroscuro in the visual brain

International Plenary Lecture - Hollis Cline (Department of Neuroscience at Scripps Research) - Proteomic analysis of visual system organisation, function and plasticity

Eccles Lecture – Pamela McCombe (University of Queensland) - Sex differences in neurological disease

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture - Selena Bartlett (Queensland University of Technology) – Neuroplasticity neuroscience, multi-generational trauma, and the treatment of addiction and obesity

Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Geoffrey Goodhill (Queensland Brain Institute) - Computational models of neural development

2018 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote – Janet Keast (University of Melbourne) - Reconstructing sacral visceral circuits for bioelectronic medicine

2018 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Wendy Imlach (Monash University) - Targeting changes in spinal circuit function to treat chronic pain

 

2018 Brisbane 

ANS Plenary Lecture - Alan Mackay-Sim (Griffith University) (Australian of the Year 2017) – Stem cells as models of brain diseases and for drug discovery

International Plenary Lecture - Alison Goate (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York) – What has genetics taught us about mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis?

Eccles Lecture - Neville Knuckey (University of Western Australia) – Peaks, peptides and protection

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture - Cliff Abraham (University of Otago, Dunedin) – Metaplasticity: Cellular memories that shape future plasticity

Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Glenda Halliday (University of Sydney) – Are neurons really the most important in neurodegenerative disease?

2017 AW Campbell Award Keynote - Susanna Park (University of Sydney) – Neurological complications in cancer survivors: Assessment strategies, risk factors and treatments

2017 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote - Ulrike Grünert (University of Sydney) – Visual pathways: From the retina to the brain

 

2017   Sydney 

ANS Plenary Lecture – Jürgen Götz (Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research, Queensland Brain Institute) - Pathomechanisms and treatment strategies

International Plenary Lecture – Junichi Nabekura (National Institute of Physiological Sciences, Japan) - Long term plasticity of neuronal circuits in development and recovery

Eccles Lecture – Kathryn North (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) - Precision Medicine: The Future is Now

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Andrew Lawrence (Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health) - Neurochemical mechanisms of reward-seeking

2016 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Stephen Abbott (Heart Research Institute, University of Sydney) - Role of the median preoptic nucleus in the control of water consumption

2016 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote – Naomi Wray (Institute for Molecular Biology & Queensland Brain Institute) – New insights from human genetic studies of brain-related traits

 

2016 Hobart  

ANS Plenary Lecture – Massimo Hilliard (Queensland Brain Institute) - Axonal fusion: an alternative mechanism to repair injured axons

International Plenary Lecture – Michael Hausser (University College London,) – All-optical interrogation of neural circuits

Eccles Lecture – Jeffrey Rosenfeld (Monash University) - Bionic vision and the future of the brain-machine interface

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – David Small (University of Tasmania) - Emerging ideas in Alzheimer's disease research: Abeta, APP and neural network dysfunction

 

2015 Cairns (joint meeting with ISN and APSN)

ISN Plenary Lecture 1 - Yoshinori Ohsumi (Tokyo Institute of Technology) - Molecular dissection of autophagy - intracellular recycling system

ISN Plenary Lecture 2 - Franz-Ulrich Hartl (Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Munich) - Molecular chaperones: guardians of the proteome

ISN Plenary Lecture 3 - Ellen Closs (Johannes Gutenberg- University, Mainz) - Why transporters of simple cationic amino acids matter

ISN Plenary lecture 4 – Leslie Vosshall (The Rockefeller University, New York, USA) – Understanding and modulating mosquito attraction to human

Lawrie Austin Lecture: Ashley Bush (Mental Health Research Institute, University of Melbourne) - Iron in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease

Eccles Lecture: Robert Vink (University of South Australia) - Increased intracranial pressure after acute CNS injury: a basic scientist's perspective of a clinical problem

 

2014 Adelaide 

ANS Plenary Lecture – Marcello Costa (Flinders University Medical Centre) - 20/20 insight in Neurogastroenterology

Overseas Plenary Lecture – Moses Chao (Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Science, New York) - The future of neurotrophic factors

Eccles Lecture – Perry Bartlett (Queensland Brain Institute) - Producing new neurons in the adult brain: How is it regulated and what is the use?

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Trevor Kilpatrick (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) - Unravelling the neurobiology of MS

 

2013 Melbourne

ANS Plenary Lecture – Margaret Morris (University of New South Wales) – Food on the brain

Overseas Plenary Lecture – Nancy Ip (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology) – Elucidating receptor tyrosine kinase-dependent signalling in neural circuit assembly and plasticity

Eccles Lecture – Ingrid Scheffer (University of Melbourne) – Deciphering the epilepsy genome and its impact on clinical practice

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Paul Martin (University of Sydney) – Colour vision, colour blindness, and importance of an eye for detail

 

2012 Gold Coast  

ANS Plenary Lecture – Heather Young (University of Melbourne) – Generating enteric neurons during development and for cell therapy

Overseas Plenary Lecture – Feng Zhang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) – Optogenetics: Development and application

Eccles Lecture – Marcus Stoodley (Macquarie University) – Elucidating the pathophysiology of syringomyelia

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Janusz Lipski (University of Auckland) – A brief history of the nigral dopaminergic neurone, L-DOPA and TRPM2 channel: considerations for Parkinson’s Disease

 

2011 Auckland    

ANS Plenary Lecture – Seong-Seng Tan (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) – Mechanisms underpinning neuron survival following brain injury

Overseas Plenary Lecture – Tobias Bonhoeffer (Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Munich) - How activity changes synapses in the mammalian brain

Eccles Lecture – Terence O'Brien (University of Melbourne) - New approaches to treat the sacred disease

Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Peter Dunkley (University of Newcastle) - Catecholamine synthesis in response to stress; the timing of tyrosine hydroxylase phosphorylation is everything

2010 Sydney (joint meeting with the Australian Physiological Society)   

ANS Plenary Lecture – Herbert Herzog (Garvan Institute) - The role of NPY in health and disease: insights from transgenic and knockout models

ANS/AuPS Overseas Plenary Lecture – Gilles Laurent (Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt-am-Main) - Circuits and dynamics for olfactory coding

The Physiological Society (UK) Exchange Lecture - David Attwell (University College London) - Brain power: How the brain’s energy supply determines the computational power of neurons

AuPS Invited Lecture - David Adams (Health Innovations Research Institute, RMIT) – Analgesic conotoxins modulating pain pathways

 

2009 Canberra 

ANS Plenary Lecture: Greg Stuart (John Curtin School of Medical Research) -The action potential

ANS Overseas Plenary Lecture: Matthew Wilson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - Sequential event memory formation and reactivation in the hippocampus and beyond

Eccles Lecture: Peter Reilly (University of Adelaide)- Neurotrauma management: prevention, protection and repair

Lawrie Austin Lecture: Phil Beart (Howard Florey Institute) - Adventures in neurochemistry: people, places and puzzles

 

2008 Hobart  

ANS Plenary Lecture: Phil Robinson (Children’s Medical Research Institute, Sydney) - Dynamin: linking endocytosis to synaptic transmission

ANS Overseas Lecture: Carla Shatz (Harvard Medical School) - Tuning up circuits: brain waves and immune genes

Eccles Lecture: Gary Egan (Howard Florey Institute) - Investigating dynamical brain networks using high resolution structural and functional MRI

ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Macdonald Christie (University of Sydney) - Neural mechanisms of opioid tolerance and dependence

 

2007 Melbourne (joint meeting with the IBRO Congress of Neuroscience)  

Plenary 1: Peter Agre (Johns Hopkins University) - Aquaporin water channels: from atomic structure to clinical medicine

Plenary 2: Norio Akaike (Kumamoto Health Science University) - Functional studies at a single excitatory or inhibitory synapse

ANS Plenary Lecture/ IBRO Plenary 3: Mandyam Srinivasan (Queensland Brain Institute) - Small brains, smart minds: vision, navigation and cognition in honeybees, and applications to robotics

ANS Overseas Lecture/ IBRO Plenary 4: Lily Jan (University of California, San Francisco) - Potassium channels

Plenary 5: Herta Flor (University of Heidelberg) - The neuropsychobiology of pain

Plenary 6: Edvard Moser (Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Trondheim) - Entorhinal grid cells and hippocampal memory

Plenary 7: Mu Ming Poo (Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai / University of California, Berkeley) - Spike timing-dependent plasticity: from synapse to perception

Plenary 8: Simon Gandevia (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Changing principles of human motor control

2006 Sydney 

ANS Plenary Lecture: Sarah Dunlop (University of Western Australia) - Promoting recovery after CNS and PNS injury

ANS Overseas Lecture: Clifford Saper (Harvard Medical School)  Hypothalamic regulation of sleep and circadian rhythms

Eccles Lecture: Frank Mastaglia (University of Western Australia) Transcranial brain stimulation: the past, the present and the future

ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Ian Gibbins (Flinders University) Somewhere over the neurochemical rainbow: synaptic heterogeneity, Schwann cells and slow transmission

 

2005 Perth  

ANS Plenary Lecture: Bruce Walmsley (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - From ear to eternity: unlocking fundamental synaptic and neuronal mechanisms in the auditory pathways of the brain

ANS Overseas Lecture: Larry Swanson (University of Southern California, Los Angeles) - Cerebral hemisphere networks controlling motivation and emotion

Eccles Lecture: Pankaj Sah (Queensland Brain Institute) - Synaptic transmission and plasticity in the amygdala: a cellular model for fear conditioning

ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Ida Llewellyn-Smith (Flinders University) - Unravelling spinal circuits that control autonomic function  

Special Lecture: Istvan Mody (University of California, Los Angeles) - Tonic inhibition in the crosshairs of hormones and drugs

 

2004 Melbourne

ANS Plenary Lecture: Peter Schofield (Garvan Institute) - The inhibitory glycine receptor: molecular studies of structure, function and disease

ANS Overseas Lecture: Eric Kandel (Columbia University, NY) - The long and short of long term memory

Eccles Lecture: Andrew Kaye (University of Melbourne) - The biology and treatment of cerebral glioma

ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Glenda Halliday (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Neurodegenerative dementias: dysfunction due to neuron loss, glial changes or protein aggregates?

Special Lecture: Robert Desimone (Salk Institute) - Top- and bottom-up neural mechanisms for attention selection in visual cortex

 

2003 Adelaide  

ANS Plenary Lecture: Colin Masters (University of Melbourne) - Molecular dissection of the pathways leading to Alzheimer’s disease

ANS Overseas Lecture: Robert Malenka (Stanford University) - Synaptic plasticity: the brain’s response to experience

Eccles Lecture: Richard Faull (University of Auckland) -Stem cells in the adult human brain

ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: David Adams (University of Queensland) - A cone snail’s view of the nervous system  

Overseas Lecture: Jean-Pierre Changeux (Institut Pasteur, Paris) - The acetylcholine nicotinic receptor: an allosteric protein involved in intercellular communication

 

2002 Sydney 

ANS Plenary Lecture: Peter Gage (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - A reductionist approach to electrical activity in the nervous system

ANS Overseas Lecture: Mu-Ming Poo (Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai / University of California, Berkeley) - Neuronal plasticity at growth cones and synapses

Eccles Lecture: Sam Berkovic (University of Melbourne) - Genetic and acquired causes of epilepsies: is there a common neurobiological substrate?

ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: John Rostas (University of Newcastle) - Molecular interactions at synapses that modify neuronal activity

 

2001 Brisbane  

ANS Plenary Lecture: Elspeth McLachlan (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Synaptic transmission in sympathetic ganglia and its modification after injury to the nervous system  

ANS Overseas Lecture: Marc Tessier-Lavigne (University of California, San Francisco)  -Wiring the brain: molecular mechanisms of axon guidance in vertebrates

Eccles Lecture: Fred Mendelsohn (Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology) - The role of brain angiotensin systems in central

homeostatic mechanisms

FASTS Lecture: Mandyam Srinivasan (Australian National University) - Small brains, smart minds: insect vision, navigation and cognition

APSN Plenary Lecture: Max Recasens (Université Montpellier II, Paris) - Brain plasticity and changes in neurotransmitter phenotype  

APSN Plenary Lecture: Katsuhiko Mikoshiba (University of Tokyo) - IP3 receptor/Ca2+ channel: a key molecule in development and plasticity

 

2000 Melbourne   

ANS Plenary Lecture: Perry Bartlett (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) - From a stem cell to a dead cell: regulating the life of a neuron

ANS Overseas Lecture: Mriganka Sur (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - Rewiring cortex: patterned activity and the development of cortical networks  

Eccles Lecture: Michael Cousins (University of Sydney) - Persistent pain: a disease entity?

 

1999 Hobart   

 ANS Plenary Lecture: Judy Morris (Flinders University) - Co-transmission and cardiovascular control: rewriting the rules

ANS Overseas Lecture: Bill Newsome (USA) - Seeing motion in depth: from neural circuits to perceptual decisions  

Eccles Lecture: Simon Gandevia (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - From motor commands to motoneurones

FASTS Lecture: Graeme Clark (University of Melbourne) - The bionic ear in the second and third millenia

Special Plenary Lecture: John Nicholls (Biozentrum der Universität Basel) - Contributions of neurobiology to clinical neurology  

Special Plenary Lecture: John Steeves (University of British Columbia) - CNS repair: what are the goals and where has there been progress?

FASTS Lecture: Sandra Rees (University of Melbourne) - Brain development during pregnancy: what happens when things go wrong

1998 Canberra

ANS Plenary Lecture: Dexter Irvine (Monash University) - Functional organisation and reorganisation in auditory cortex

ANS Overseas Lecture: Bert Sakmann (Max-Planck-Institut für medizinische Forschung, Heidelberg, Germany) - Grey matter(s)?

Eccles Lecture: M.J. Fulham (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney)- Functional imaging in the neurosciences: the role of PET, MR and SPECT

FASTS Lecture: Graham Johnston (University of Sydney) - A chemist's look at the brain

 

1997 Newcastle

ANS Plenary Lecture: Mark Rowe (University of New South Wales) - The brain and sensation: organisation and processing for touch and kinaesthesia  

ANS Overseas Lecture: Denis Baylor (Stanford University, USA) - Cellular mechanisms of single photon detection  

Eccles Lecture: John Willoughby (Flinders University) - Generalised epilepsy: possible mechanisms

FASTS Lecture: Jonathon Stone (University of Sydney) - Death and survival in the nervous system: our increasing understanding of neurodegenerative diseases

ANS Special Guest Lecture: Howard Schulman (Stanford, USA) - Spatial and temporal regulation of calcium signalling

 

1996 Adelaide

ANS Plenary Lecture: Wickliffe Abraham (University of Otago) - Metaplasticity: the

activity dependent regulation of synaptic plasticity

ANS Overseas Lecture: Geoff Burnstock (University College London) - Purinergic receptors

Eccles Lecture: John Morris (University of Sydney) - The art and science of clinical observation

FASTS Lecture: John Chalmers (Flinders University) - Brain and blood pressure

 

1995 Perth

ANS Plenary Lecture: Richard Mark (Research School of Biological Sciences, ANU) -  Development of sensory pathways in a mammalian brain: anatomy and physiology

ANS Overseas Lecture: Albert Aguayo (Montréal General Hospital Research Institute) - Survival regrowth and reconnection of injured neurons in the adult mammalian brain

Eccles Lecture: Bill Blessing (Flinders University) - Just one nervous system

FASTS Lecture: Richard Faull (University of Auckland) - Neurological diseases and neural transplantation

 

1994 Sydney

ANS Plenary Lecture: David Vaney (University of Queensland) -The neuronal architecture of the mammalian retina

ANS Overseas Lecture: U. Jack McMahan (Stanford University) - Composition and function of the matrix in synaptic cleft  

ANS Special Guest Lecture: Trevor Lamb (University of Cambridge) - Signalling in G-protein cascades: the photoreceptor as an example

ANS Guest Lecture: Timothy Bliss (National Institute for Medical Research, UK) - Retrograde messengers in long-term potentiation

Eccles Lecture: Peter Blumbergs (Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide) -Traumatic axonal injury

FASTS Lecture: Clive Harper (University of Sydney) - Are we drinking our neurones away?  

1993 Melbourne

ANS Plenary Lecture: Marcello Costa (Flinders University) - The enteric nervous system

ANS Overseas Lecture: Stanley B. Prusiner (University of California, San Francisco) - Chemistry and biology of prion diseases

ANS Special Guest Lecture: Jack Feldman (University of California, Los Angeles) - Rhythmic pattern generators: cellular and synaptic mechanisms underlying breathing movements

Eccles Lecture: Ian McCloskey (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Postural stabilizing reflexes in humans  

FASTS Lecture: Colin L. Masters (University of Melbourne) - The enigma of amyloid in the causation of Alzheimer’s disease

 

1992 Adelaide

ANS Plenary Lecture: David Hirst (University of Melbourne) - Neuroeffector transmission in the nervous system  

ANS Overseas Lecture: Bertil Hille (University of Washington) - G protein-coupled receptors, channels, modulation and mood

FASTS Lecture: Jim Lance (University of New South Wales) - Consequences of neurology to the health of the nation

ANS Special Guest Lecture: Hugh Perry (University of Oxford) - The role of macrophages in degeneration and regeneration in the peripheral nervous system  

 

1991 Dunedin

ANS Plenary Lecture: Ian McCloskey (University of New South Wales) - Experiments on human motor control

 

1990 Queensland

ANS Plenary Lecture: David Curtis (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - Micropharmacology of central synaptic terminals  (Delivered in 1991)

ANS Overseas Lecture: Roger Nicoll (University of California, San Francisco) - Mechanisms underlying long-term potentiation: a cellular model for memory

ANS Overseas Lecture: J. Maynard Ritchie (Yale University) - Ion channels in Schwann and glial cells

ISN Visiting Lecture: Bernard Agranoff (University of Michigan) - Biochemistry of second messengers

 

1989 Monash

ANS Plenary Lecture: Lyn Beazley (University of Western Australia) - Development of the visual system

 

1988 Canberra

ANS Plenary Lecture: John Furness (Flinders University) - Structure, neurochemistry and function of the enteric nervous system

 

1987 Newcastle

ANS Plenary Lecture: John Pettigrew (University of Queensland) - Ramblings in comparative neuroscience

ISN Visiting Lecture: Willem Gispen (Rudolf Magnus Institute for Pharmacology, Utrecht) - Phosphoprotein B50 in neuronal function

 

1986 Perth

ANS Plenary Lecture: Stephen Redman (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - Excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system

 

1985 Adelaide

ANS Plenary Lecture: Jonathan Stone (University of New South Wales) - Patterns of retinal embryogenesis

 

1984 Canberra

ANS Plenary Lecture: James Lance (University of New South Wales) - Brain stem control of the cephalic circulation and its possible relation to migraine

 

1983 Melbourne

ANS Plenary Lecture: Max Bennett (University of Sydney) - The development of neurons and their synaptic connections

 

1982 Sydney

ANS Plenary Lecture: David Cohen (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland) - Neural correlates of classical conditioning in the pigeon

 

1981 Adelaide

ANS Plenary Lecture: Hugh Niall (Florey Institute) - Neuropeptides