Platform

: Cesame

Brain, Mind and Health Institute, is located in Lyon, France, and led by Neurodis Foundation. The French Government with the “Investment for Future” program supports the Institute. CESAME Institute aims at developing research and therapies in neurology and neuropsychiatry for the benefit of patients. The Institute works to bridge brain and mind health creating synergy between: neuroscience, psychiatry and social science and humanities. Its actions come in the following research themes:

• Global understanding of brain functioning: neural development, optogenetics…
• Brain and mind diseases understanding: neural network dysfunctions, degeneration, cognitive disorders, and abnormal brain excitability in pain, epilepsy and mental diseases…
• Therapies enhancements, for example: brain repair, remediation, neuroprotection, readaptation, new technological solutions using brain-computer interfaces…

CESAME Institute gathers five high technological facilities:

• Cell engineering and gene transfer facility aims at improving stem cell-based therapeutic strategies of neurodegenerative diseases and implementing gene transfer in non human primate models suffering from retinal defects, and for progressing in understanding the mechanisms of brain development and plasticity.
• Blood-brain interface facilty develops in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo models for understanding bloodbrain interface functions, which is a key issue to improve the bioavailability of Central Nervous System (CNS) therapeutic agents to validate their therapeutic targets and to decrease the side effects of drugs on CNS.
• Human brain signal facility permits to record and analyse intracerebral EEG (iEEG) in epileptic patients candidates to epilepsy surgery thus offering a unique opportunity to record neural activity throughout the human brain with optimal time and anatomical resolution and permitting a real-time monitoring of interactions between brain and environment. • Neuro-immersion facility develops innovative strategies for rehabilitation of neurological, cognitive and psychiatric disorders via the coupling of immersive virtual reality, neurostimulation systems and state-of-art neuroscience tools.
• Neuro-imaging facility develops new radio-ligands and image analysis software for Positon Emission Tomography (PET) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) for brain studies using the first fully simultaneous 3Tesla MRI-PET installed in France. For further information, click here. (http://www.fondation-neurodis.org/fr/notre-action/linstitut-cesame/)