Events

August 2023
Congratulations to Samantha who won the “Best Swiss Movement Disorders Paper Award 2023” from the Foundation for Research in Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders!

June 2023
Samantha and Ayla presented their posters at the Day of Biomedical Research 2023 in Bern! What a great opportunity to connect with our local research fellows!

June 2023
Very proud to announce that Samantha Weber was awarded the prestigious prize for Best PhD Thesis at the GCB graduate school, Bern University.
Congratulations Samantha!!

April 2023
Selma presented the latest results from the BioGen study and further outlooks during the plenary session of the 75th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Boston!
What a great opportunity!

March 2023
Happy to see our new PhD students presenting their projects at the Clinical Neuroscience Bern Researchers’ Night.
What a great environment encouraging young researchers to network and exchange on different scientific topics!

November 2022
The review on “Diagnosis and management of functional neurological disorders” published in The British Medical Journal is in the top 5 of most read clinical reviews for 2022!
Congrats to Selma & David for this excellent work!
https://www.bmj.com/company/americas/state-of-the-art-clinical-reviews/

August 1st 2022:
Welcome to Natascha Stoffel and Nathalie Schwab who joined our FND research team as research assistants and will soon start their PhD in our group.

July 2022
In pouring rain the FND research group did a Foxtrail through Bern and ended the evening with a delicious dinner.
It was a great opportunity for the new team members to get to know the scientific as well as the clinical team.

July 1st 2022
We are happy to welcome Eliane Müller and Salome Häuselmann in the Aybek FND group. Eliane and Salome joined our team as research assistants and will soon start their PhD in our research team. Welcome and good luck!
     

June 14-16 2022
The FND research group takes part in the 4th International Conference on Functional Neurological Disorder in Boston. Congratulations to Janine Bühler, who won the best poster presentation prize. 

May 2022
A lot has happened in the last year. Our team has grown quite a bit. We now have two postdocs in the Aybek FND group, Serafeim Loukas and Nicolas Gninenko. Both have a strong background in electrical engineering and can provide excellent support to our team. Manuela Steinauer has also joined our team and supports us as research manager. Furthermore, Anna Wyss started working with us as a research assistant and will soon start her PhD in our group. Welcome to all the new team members. 

April 2020:
The International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society dedicates an editorial to FND, highlighting how the awareness of this difficult disorder has increased in the last years. Find the full issue at the following link:
MovingAlong-2020Issue1

November 13th 2019:
The Aybek FND Group joins the Day of Biomedical Research in  Bern, where Giuseppe and Samantha presented their current work with posters on Sense of Agency and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in FND.

August 18th 2019:
To enjoy a sunny day in summer, the Aybek FND Group goes for a hike in the beautiful region of Schwarzsee. We had great fun, and awesome weather!

August 1st 2019:
Janine Bühler joins the Aybek FND group as PhD Student. She will study methods to reduce stress in FND patients, with focus on stress reduction therapy, such as MBSR (Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction). We wish you good luck, and a successful PhD work!

June 14th 2019:
The Aybek FND Group joins the Clinical Neuroscience Bern (CNB) Annual Meeting, where Samantha presented her Master Thesis about the identification of functional neurological disorders using a support vector machine classifier based on resting-state functional connectivity.

May 4th – 10th 2019:
Selma Aybek joins the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Annual Meeting 2019. Thank you Selma for keeping the Aybek FND Group always up-to-date to the current vision of the scientific community.

May 1st 2019:
We are happy to welcome Samantha Weber in the Aybek FND group as PhD Student. She will work on the relationship between stress and FND by studying stress biomarkers, such as salivary cortisol and amylase, as well as epigenetics. Welcome Samantha, and good luck!
 

February 18th 2019:
Dr. Sarah Lidstone (Toronto Western Hospital, University of Toronto, Canada) visits the Aybek FND Group to give a talk on treatment possibilities for FND. After an exciting scientific day, we finally relaxed with a walk in the Bern Old Town. Thank you, Sarah, for the fruitful discussion!

January 10th 2019:
The Aybek FND Group is celebrating the beginning of the new year with a social event. We hope this new year will be as successful as the past one!

December 13th 2018:
Confratulations to Dr. Giuseppe Zito for the award of the SNF Mobility Fellowship. He will spend 20 months at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (Paris, FR) to do research activities in the field of impaired sense of agency and non-invasive brain stimulation in patients affected by FND, Primary Dystonia and Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome. Congrats Giuseppe, and anjoy this new adventure!

November 9th – 10th 2018:
The Aybek FND Group joined the 4th Alpine Chapter Symposium in Innsbruck (Austria). Giuseppe gave a talk on the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on the sense of agency.

July 7th – 11th 2018:
The Aybek FND Group joined the 11th FENS Forum of Neuroscience, where Giuseppe presented the latest results of a study conducted on the modulation of the sense of agency with TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation).

June 30th 2018:
Congratulations to Dimitri Horn, who received a Prix de Faculté from UNIL for his Medical Doctorate! He published a very interesting paper entitled “Testing heads rotation and flexion is useful in functional limb weakness”. Check out the full publication here.

May 25th 2018:
The Aybek FND Group joins the Clinical Neuroscience Bern (CNB) Annual Meeting, where Giuseppe gives a presentation on the effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on the sense of agency. We got very nice feedbacks!

March 14th 2018:
The Aybek FND Group joins the CNB (Clinical Neuroscience Bern) Science Slam, as part of the Brain Week 2018, where Giuseppe wins the award for the best presentation. He answered the question “Is there anything beyond blobology?”. Congratulations, Giuseppe!

March 1st 2018:
Prof. Dr. med Selma Aybek has been awarded with the SNF Professorship Grant (Swiss National Foundation, www.snf.ch). This is one of the highest career achievements that can be awarded. Congratulations Selma, and good luck!

November 15th 2017:
The Aybek FND Group joins the IAPRD Conference 2017, the World Congress on Parkinson’s Disease and Related Disorders. The poster of Giuseppe Zito has been awarded with the “blue ribbon”, within the top 15 posters of the conference. Congrats Giuseppe!!

September 28th and 29th 2017:
The Aybek FND Group joins the annual meeting of the Swiss neurological Society. Dimitri Horn is there presenting his project with a poster. Great job Dimitri!

September 16th 2017:
Nacht der Forschung Bern 2017, where we presented our research to the general public. It was a great fun to see so many visitors interested in what we are doing. Many of them gave availability in participating in our study as healthy subjects! Thank you very much to all of you guys!!

September 1st 2017:
Welcome to Laura, our new medical student! She will work with behavioral measures of the sense of agency. Good luck!

April 1st 2017:
Welcome to Giuseppe, our new postdoctoral researcher! He will work with non-invasive brain stimulation techniques.

June 26-30th 2016:
Poster presentation from Jen Wegrzyk at OHBM 2016 Annual Meeting Conference in Geneva – “Aberrant resting-state functional connectivity in functional neurological disorder”. Here is the Poster presented.

April 1st 2016:
Article “Ne m’appelez plus hystérie…” in the HUG magazine Pulsations. Click on the image below and scroll down to page 8!

January 1st 2016:
Welcome to Kalliopi, our new postdoctoral researcher!

November 27th 2015:
Jon Stone conference at HUG – “From Hysteria to Functional Neurological Disorders: clinical concepts in 2015”

November 26th 2015:
Dimitri Horn’s Master thesis at University of Lausanne UNIL – “Le signe du sternocléidomastoïdien dans les troubles de conversion”

September 9th 2015:
Silvio Galli’s Thesis at the University of Franche-Comté – “Analyse structurelle en imagerie cérébrale des Troubles de Conversion”