Reflecting on ISN’s Schools
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ISN Bowerbird
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Why Slow Science Means Cleaning Up the Kitchen
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C O N T E N T S P A G E O F
V O L .
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Interview with Dr. Nirma Perera
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Charting Careers, Crossing Continents: A Personal Perspective
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From the Archives: The Dinosaurs
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Thepreamble
I remember feeling isolated during my doctoral studies My studies were different from the topics of nearby laboratories, so I felt disconnected from my peers because I could not find any common scientific interests I felt similar at many conferences; the presentations and posters did not align with my research Near the end of my doctoral studies, Dr Marco Prado (the former Editor-in-Chief for reviews in the Journal of Neurochemistry) informed me of the Schools organized by the International Society of Neurochemistry and supported my application I will always be grateful for this kindness, as these Schools have been more beneficial than I could have imagined
Forthosewhohavenever heard of them: what are ISN’sSchools?
The Schools come in two flavors: the 5-day Flagship School, and the 3-day Advanced School The Advanced School runs every two years immediately prior to the Biennial Meeting, and the Flagship School occurs every other year The topics of these Schools will vary, and they culminate in the invitation to write a review for the Journal of Neurochemistry with other School attendees.
Writing is one of the most important skills a scientist can learn. After all, if you cannot tell
others about your discoveries, nobody will ever know about them! Furthermore, depending on your career path, you may need to tell others about your hypotheses to be able to get money to do more research. Writing the School reviews is an incredibly unique and rewarding opportunity to learn and practice writing skills.
st
Focus on neurochemistry! It may sound obvious, but it is harder to do than it sounds –after all, we always vote for someone to create the best definition of neurochemistry at our Biennial Meetings! Focusing on neurochemistry will go a long way to making your reviews a reasonable length.
The Schools bring together dozens of PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows from across the globe, and gives them an opportunity to write a review with people from a variety of different fields and cultures. The first unique complication this brings is developing a focused review. In most scenarios, a researcher would write a review within their laboratory or with laboratories that share closelyrelated interests. In contrast, the School review involves writing with researchers with expertise in a much wider range of topics. For example, my expertise is in intersects ligand-receptor interactions, microglia and in vitro models, but my colleagues may have expertise in a single neurotransmitter, neurons and super resolution microscopy.
How did our group go about writing a paper for the School?
1) Before starting the writing, we decided how to manage the paper with people across the globe. For example, everyone may use different referencing software, so how do we account for the headaches that may arise from this? Everyone is busy, so how do we make sure the authorship is fair when the review is complete? How do we ensure that the story is clear and coherent if the review is written by forty different authors? Our decisions were as follows: all references would be cited by writing the DOI until right before the paper was submitted, all authors must contribute and provide their information as early as possible, and two to three authors would act as the editors and be responsible for making the story coherent.
Use many examples! Using examples will reduce the need for readers to download citations to understand sentences and determine if the citation is relevant. This may include explicitly saying the changes observed in a research article, the model used, and how these data support the point you are trying to make.
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Focus on recent articles! While not always possible for every citation, a majority of articles in the review should be written in the last 5 years. Often, older citations can be cut from the review without changing the story.
2) After that, we spent a month on the review’s structure. We agreed upon a list of headers for the review as well as the tables and figures that would go under each header, giving a basis for talking points in paragraphs. For example, our tables were describing the advantages and disadvantages of different tools to study neurochemical events, and the paragraphs would elaborate on how these tools advanced the neurochemistry field.
3) Next, we wrote a series of topic sentences. By reading these topic sentences, the story of the review came to life, and we assigned an author to fill each paragraph with the details. The goal was to get each section with a header to be stand-alone.
4) At this point, the two to three authors that acted as editors refined the review to the make the story coherent, and ultimately the best it could be.
The end of the Schools often results in a multi-hour trip back to a destination, whether an airport or the ISN Biennial Meeting. At this point, you have been with a group of other scientists for three to five days, and you become familiar with their areas of expertise. It was during this trip that I realized how great it was to have new friends.
I am not a behavioral scientist nor an expert in neuroanatomy. I know enough about these topics to answer my research questions, but these topics only relate to a couple graphs on the projects that I contribute to. On the way back, I realized that I have many smart friends whom I could ask questions about these topics. I remembered that I had one dataset that demonstrated that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in a certain neuropsychiatric disease displayed a unique phenotype that was not observed elsewhere in the brain. So, I turned to my new friend beside me – a behavioral neuroscientist –and asked:
th Be kind! These reviews give authors a unique opportunity to write with scientists from all over the world, each with different life experiences. Learn from one another by asking for clarification to sentences, and be kind by setting the expectation upfront that it is OK for authors to ask to step back from writing if personal or work lives become too busy.
“What does the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex do? What behavioral experiments could I do to test that this region of the brain was dysfunctional?” They answered, and now we are finishing up those recommended behavioral experiments and the results look exciting. My research project would have never been as good without the people that I met at the School.
The review itself showed me how important it is to bring together neurochemistry scientists with different perspectives. Since all the authors had different areas of expertise, our review gave a more holistic view on the topic. Our review brought perspectives from clinical and preclinical researchers; from neuron and glia researchers; and from behavioral and molecular biology experts. Ultimately, it made me learn about areas I would have otherwise never considered, and I think this made me become a better scientist.
...an analysis of postings on X and Bluesky, done by Altmetric.
https://www altmetric com/blog/blueskys -ahead-but-is-x-a-dead-parrot/
...and the rise of bullshit jobs in universities”
https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awaf045
...the dos and don’ts of scientific editing.
https://www.nature.c om/articles/d41586025-01299-2
Curator of the interesting, useful and occasionally quirky.
Jason conducts research in the fields of metascience, expert evidence law, forensic science, and criminology. He is the former president of AIMOS and a founding editor of MetaROR
Jason Chin, MA, JD, PhD
Director of teaching and learning
ANU College of Law, Governance, and Policy
Australian National University (bio; homepage)
Chair, ANU Press Law editorial board Board, AIMOS
Associate editor, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
Registered reports editor, Forensic Science International: Synergy
In a recent column, I likened the slow science movement to the slow food movement because they both emphasize quality over mass production. But slow science isn’t just about designing better studies. It’s also about cleaning up the mess that fast science leaves behind.
To borrow an analogy from chef Gordon Ramsay:
“Before a kitchen can produce exacting, Michelin-starred cuisine, it first needs to be scrubbed down. That means clearing out the rot and honing our instruments.”
The same goes for science. Before we can build confidently on existing research, we need to clean up the scientific record. It involves identifying questionable findings, revisiting the data behind them (when it's available), and trying to replicate studies It also means revisiting well-cited constructs, hypothesis testing practices, and measurement tools to make sure they are as sharp as we have been assuming.
Unfortunately, today’s research system offers few rewards for this kind of work. Replication studies are difficult to publish. Investigations into fraud or error often fall to unpaid volunteers. In fact, it can be risky, especially when questioning the work of senior or well-connected researchers.
This is why error correction is a quintessential slow science practice: it is meticulous, difficult, and rarely rewarded under current academic incentives. But it’s absolutely necessary to a well-functioning research system and vital to normative accounts for why the public ought to trust science.
Encouragingly, there are some signs of progress. For example, there are inchoate attempts to incentivize and normalize error correction in science. Similarly, there is growing culture of post-publication peer review that spots errors in published studies, sometimes leading to their retraction.
Still, these are scattered efforts. What’s needed is a systematic commitment to scientific hygiene. That means funding for replication studies. It means institutional recognition for researchers who do the slow, careful work of verifying results. It means editorial policies that make space for correction, not just novelty.
You have been one of the first people to go through the new JNC Editor in Training scheme. Tell us a bit about how you got involved with it.
I first became involved through the ISN-JNC Flagship School on Brain Metabolism in Health & Disease, held in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2022. The school took place in a former convent that had been converted into a large hotel, and it was a fantastic experience, not only in terms of learning, but also for networking. It was there that I had the opportunity to connect with Andy (JNC Editor-in-Chief) and Kim Kwan, who was the journal’s social media manager at the time. Through conversations with them, I gained valuable insights into the inner workings of the journal.
As a research scientist who had published several papers, I realized how little I actually knew about what happens behind the scenes in academic publishing. At that point, I hadn’t even been a corresponding author on a manuscript, so stepping into this role was a completely new experience for me. Andy played a pivotal role here, he created a structured workflow to guide us trainee handling editors through the editorial process step-by-step, which was incredibly helpful in navigating this new responsibility.
How does the work on a typical manuscript submission happen? What have you found to be the major challenges?
When a manuscript relevant to our field is submitted, the editorial office first checks whether we’re available to handle it. If we agree, the trainee editor workflow involves three key steps. First, we assess whether the manuscript is suitable for the journal in terms of scope and standards. If it is, we move to reviewer selection, compiling a list of at least three potential reviewers with appropriate expertise, along with justifications, and submitting it to Andy for approval before sending invitations through the system. Finally, once all referee reports are in, we draft a critical assessment and our recommendation evaluating the manuscript’s scope, quality, and novelty, and email it to Andy as the EiC. If the recommendation is approved, we submit our comments to the authors (and EiC) via the system.
A common challenge, which I believe is shared by most handling editors, is the difficulty in securing enough reviewers in a timely manner. Often, potential reviewers do not respond to the invitation at all, making the process slow and uncertain. So, the trick I learnt is to find as many reviewers as possible and keep some as back-up if the others do not respond.
However, the most unexpected challenge I encountered was simply trying to find reviewers’ email addresses. I typically search PubMed to identify researchers who have published similar work, but most journals only list the corresponding author’s email. Platforms like Google Scholar or ORCID often display only partial affiliation details, not full email addresses, and many University or institute websites don’t include contact information on researcher profiles.
This raised a broader concern for me: if researchers are difficult to contact, they may be missing out not only on invitations to review but also on collaborations or other valuable opportunities. So, my one piece of advice— especially for junior researchers and postdocs—is to make sure your professional online profiles (e.g., University, lab websites, LinkedIn, etc.) include a clearly visible and up-to-date email address.
How did you find working with the JNC Editorial Office and the other editors?
I found the editorial office very helpful. Especially at the start, Isaline really helped me navigate the online system when I was unsure of its features. For now, I haven’t had much contact with other editors.
So are you ready to step up to be a Handling Editor and fully fledged Ed Board member?
I think so - or at least I would like to be. I think it will be an amazing opportunity for a postdoctoral researcher such as myself.
What have you found interesting about the position, and do you think there is anything unique or different about JNC? Would you recommend the scheme to your peers?
Being quite a junior researcher, I haven’t worked in any other journal environment than JNC so I can’t really comment on what is unique about JNC. But I certainly think the friendly and supportive environment of JNC is a great place for any junior researcher to start their editorial journey. I got direct mentoring from Andy and his team, so I highly recommend this scheme to my peers.
Marrakech, Morocco
Your paragraph text The 2025 SONA meeting in Marrakech offered ISN a good opportunity to connect with colleagues, share resources, and engage with the growing neuroscience community across Africa.
The event opened with the ISN Lecture delivered by Rosa Cossart, setting a thoughtful tone for the days ahead. Throughout the week, ISNsupported sessions and symposia featured important work, particularly from early-career scientists and alumni of ISN-supported schools. Topics ranged from neuroinfectious diseases and plant-based therapies to data governance and brain health research, highlighting the diversity of approaches in the region.
ISN Day provided a focused space for discussion around funding opportunities, society initiatives, and future events. Many attendees took the chance to speak directly with ISN leadership over lunch, and the atmosphere throughout was warm and constructive.
Poster sessions saw strong participation, and talks like Elisabeth Ngo Bum’s lecture on traditional medicine in Cameroon added valuable local perspective to the program. The final day closed with a symposium showcasing young researchers supported by ISN, whose contributions reflected the society’s ongoing commitment to capacity building.
Marrakech? Marrakech was so welcoming, lively, and rich in culture. We appreciated every conversation, smile, and shared interest. ISN remains committed to supporting neuroscience across all regions, and SONA 2025 was a meaningful step in that direction.
ISN Secretary Babette Fuss introducing Neurochemistry 2027, set to take place in Kyoto, Japan.
A warm Marrakech sunset closing another day of science.
Where conversations, curiosity, and community came together - the ISN booth.
The smiles of SONA 2025
From Ibadan to Saskatchewan: The Path of an ISN Career Development Grant Awardee
The world is a village, yet global! In science, ideas transcend boundaries, discoveries break barriers, collaborations bridge distance, and inventions are not location-bound. Drawing from my career journey across different continents, this article highlights how navigating new terrains, working across various labs and principal investigators have shaped my neuroscience trajectory, and underlines the significance of institutions, researchers, and scientific societies to embrace global engagement
My academic foundation was laid at the University of Ibadan, the premier higher institution in Nigeria, where I received the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. I practiced for a few years as a small and companion animal clinician until the neurological cases I observed in some of my patients led me to pursue neuroscience research. Thus, I received a master’s in veterinary pharmacology and a Ph.D. in Veterinary Physiology (Neuroscience). My PhD research at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (supervised by Profs Funsho Olayemi and James Olopade), and Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB), China, with sponsorship from the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World.
Vanadium (a major environmental heavy metal in crude oil) is known for its demyelinating, cognitive impairment, and neurotoxic potential following acute exposure in large quantities At KIB, I worked with Prof Ning Hua Tan in a neuropharmacology lab, where I pioneered the isolation of bioactive compounds from medicinal plants that could ameliorate and protect against these vanadium-induced cognitive deficits and central nervous system damages My time in China immersed me not only in models of blood-brain barrier (BBB) but interacting with locals who could not communicate in English Sometimes it felt odd being the only person of color in a scientific meeting, the only one speaking English at a gathering, sometimes I even used sign language, all in a bid to communicate. This study was awarded the best thesis at my university in 2017.
Following the public health impact of my study in a country with the highest exploration of crude oil in Africa, I wanted to explore further the impact of environmental pollutants on the BBB and some altered signalling pathways. To pursue this, I was awarded the US Department of State Fulbright Exchange Scholarship. This afforded me an opportunity to work in the lab of Margaret Bynoe, a neuroimmunologist and BBB expert. My study revealed that dysfunctional adenosinergic signaling could alter proliferation within the oligodendrocyte precursor cell population, and this is important in regulating myelin synthesis.
Working in the U.S. was a significantly different experience from my Ph.D. journey in China. This time, I was able to travel with my two young children and had the support of family members who helped care for them. This support system allowed me to stay focused in the lab without the stress of late-night check-ins (due to the time zone difference between Nigeria and the U.S). At the lab, I was fully immersed in hands-on research. I worked for the first time with transgenic mouse lines, performing routine PCR genotyping, setting up breeding pairs, and working with glioblastoma cell lines. This exposure greatly expanded my skills and expertise. Additionally, the Department's regular seminars provided valuable opportunities to connect with researchers beyond Cornell.
Through the Cornell International Friendship Program, I was paired with kind and welcoming local hosts within the community. They helped my family settle in, navigate our new environment, and celebrate local traditions, whether it was baking apple pie, egg painting, or hiking to the waterfalls. Their warmth gave us a strong sense of belonging, and I also shared the Nigerian culture with them.
Inspired by my host lab in Ithaca, I was determined to replicate that experience at my home institution. I received the IBRO Return Home Grant (now the IBRO Rising Star Award), which I used to establish a pioneering neurobehavioural lab in the Department of Veterinary Physiology and Biochemistry. The lab focuses on behavioural testing across the lifespan—from early postnatal stages to adulthood. In addition to building a state-of-the-art research facility, mentoring the next generation of scientists to tackle local challenges through cutting-edge research has remained a top priority for me. I am aware that in my field, females are significantly underrepresented in graduate programs and residencies, largely due to the demands of family responsibilities and the long commitment required to complete a DVM degree. To address this, I created a comprehensive database of childcare resources specifically tailored for graduate students. This initiative led to a remarkable 100% increase in female enrollment in the graduate veterinary neuroscience program at the University of Ibadan.
I provided my graduate and DVM students with a multidisciplinary, intellectually stimulating environment that exposed them to diverse areas of neuroscience. I emphasized active, engaged scholarship, and many of these trainees have made meaningful research contributions. Unlike the international labs I had worked in, many vendors and companies were reluctant to ship to Nigeria. This created a significant bottleneck that limited the scope of our research. To overcome this, intermediaries were involved, often costing more, even from our limited grant funds. Yet we were determined to persist and maintain productivity despite these challenges.
TranslationalResearchinCanada
Having discovered beta-sitosterol, a potent antioxidant that improved cognition by reducing oxidative stress, upregulating PDGFRα in oligodendrocytes, and mitigating neuroinflammation in heavy-metal induced demyelination, I was awarded the International Society of Neurochemistry Career Development Grant This enabled me to expand my research into other demyelinating disorders, particularly multiple sclerosis, where cognitive decline is a growing concern. To further deepen my expertise, I received the Canada First Research Excellence Fund–BrainsCAN Postdoctoral Fellowship at Western University in London, Ontario. There, I trained in touchscreen-based assessments of higher-order cognition, methods that are highly translatable to human clinical studies. I was particularly interested in using this technology to investigate how compromised myelin integrity contributes to cognitive deficits in demyelinating conditions. Working in this dynamic research environment, under the mentorship of Drs. Tim Bussey, Lisa Saksida, and Ravi Menon, in collaboration with Dr. Thóra Káradóttir (University of Cambridge), I explored the intersection of cognitive function and cellular neurobiology. This experience allowed me to appreciate the translational potential of basic research in disease contexts such as multiple sclerosis.
In September 2024, I started my current role as Assistant Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, where I continue to investigate myelin disruption in neurotoxicity and neurodegenerative disorders, while also exploring innovative strategies for myelin repair.
My transcontinental experiences illustrate the significant benefits of international mobility in neuroscience research. By dismantling geographic and institutional silos, we pave the way for a more interconnected and impactful scientific community. My journey—through different continents—reflects how scientific careers can be both globally relevant and locally rooted. The world is, indeed, a village: diverse in culture, united in purpose, empowered by mentors and mentees, supported by scientific societies, and strengthened by collaboration across continents.
Written by Olamide Elizabeth Adebiyi University of Saskatchewan
CAREER SUPPORT GRANT
Supports young ISN members with funds for research supplies, small equipment, or ISN conference travel, helping them grow their research and move towards independence.
LABORATORY EXCHANGE GRANT
Funds lab visits abroad for Student and Postdoc members to gain new skills or knowledge, encouraging global exchange and supporting their research and home institutions upon return.
CONFERENCE SUPPORT GRANT
Supports the organization of small, focused conferences on neurochemical topics, fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing within the global community.
SCHOOLS SUPPORT GRANT
Supports international neurochemistry schools, especially in emerging regions, to build skills, share knowledge, and strengthen global scientific exchange and collaboration.
DEADLINE FOR ALL GRANTS: October 31, 2025
Since its foundation in 1967, three officers are in charge of running ISN – the Chairman, the Secretary, and the Treasurer. In 1997, the initial ISN Chairman became the ISN President. The Bylaws of ISN Inc. (2011) define the duties of the ISN President as: 1) to preside at membership and Council meetings, 2) to be responsible for executing policies determined by Council, 3) to act as spokesperson for the Society and 4) to see that all Orders and Resolutions of Council are carried into effect. The first Chairman of ISN was Roger Rossiter (19671969). So far ISN was lead by 29 Chairpersons/Presidents who were based in 13 different countries.
A new ISN Officer is elected every two years, with the concept that Secretary and Treasurer will serve overlapping terms of four years. The senior of the two ISN Officers becomes the unopposed candidate for ISN President. An elected new officer will replace the most senior ISN officers who will become the new ISN President for a period of two years. After four years of experience in the respective office, the new ISN President will be able to advise the incoming new officer in all duties connected with the position of either the Secretary or the Treasurer.
An ISN President leaving office and becoming immediate Past-President will join the prestigious Club of ISN Dinosaurs. This tradition was founded by ISN Past-President Kunihiko Suzuki in 1995 when he was wearing a Dinosaur T-Shirt in at the ISN meeting in Kyoto (Figure 1), retiring from his presidency. ISN Past-President Elisabeth Bock continued this young tradition by wearing also a dinosaur T-shirt at the Council meeting 1997 in Boston. The ISN Newsletter from December 1997 shows a picture of the ISN Council (Figure 2) and explains: “According to a tradition started by her predecessor Kunihiko Suzuki, Elisabeth Bock as Ex-Chairperson, wears a dinosaur T-shirt, indicating that she has joined and become the chairperson of the ISN Ad hoc Committee, also known as Dinosaur Club”.
The ISN Ad Hoc Committee (Dinosaur Club) became later the ISN Standing Rules Committee which was merged with the ISN Finance Committee in 2018 to the ISN Finance and Advisory Committee. This Committee oversees now the updating of the ISN Standing Rules and provides advice to ISN on general and financial matters. The ISN Finance and Advisory Committee formally meets at the ISN Biennial Meetings and may be called on at any time in service for ISN.
It became the tradition that the remaining active ISN officers prepare a dinosaur T-Shirt for the leaving ISN President. This T-shirt was and still is officially handed over at the Presidents Reception at an ISN biennial meeting, celebrating that the now new immediate Past-President has become an ISN Dinosaur. Figure 3 shows more pictures of ISN Past-Presidents wearing their dinosaur T-shirts, at least the pictures that we have currently in the ISN Archive. Unfortunately, for many Past-Presidents we do not have such photos. If you should have such pictures in your files or know somebody who may have them, please be so kind to help us getting more pictures of the ISN Dinosaurs into the ISN Archive.
In recent years, the dinosaur T-shirts created for leaving ISN Presidents became quite elaborate. Although the dinosaurs are drawn now in a sort of “Disney style”, the picture printed on the T-shirts hide also some internal secrets and may deliver some messages to the new ISN Dinosaur (Figure 4). Of course, I will not communicate these hidden secrets in this short article. However, please feel free to ask the respective Past-Presidents at the next ISN meeting about the motives on their dinosaur T-shirts and the underlying stories.
After two years in office, the now retired ISN President becomes the immediate Past-President. In this function, the Past-President remains appointed Council member for two years, will prepare the draft of an updated version of the ISN Standing Rules and will co-chair the ISN Finance and Advisory Committee together with the acting ISN Treasurer. In addition, since 2023 the immediate Past-President acts as chair of the next but one ISN Flagship School Committee. All these duties will keep the immediate Past-President quite busy and strongly connected with ISN.
ISN Past-Presidents are the living memory of ISN. Their broad experience and their commitment to ISN are considered by acting ISN Officers as highly valuable to receive advice on ISN´s current and future developments. Therefore, ISN is very to keen to have the ISN Past-Presidents continuing their services to the Society as member of the Dinosaur Club. As member of the ISN Finance and Advisory Committee, ISN PastPresidents can remain formally connected with ISN as long as they wish and as long as they renew their ISN membership. Thus, ISN can profit a long time from the experience, the connections and the valuable advice of the ISN Dinosaurs.
