Neurological disorders have emerged as a significant global societal burden, exemplified by afflictions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, impacting over one billion individuals globally and surpassing the combined economic burden of cancer and diabetes. This has spurred a concerted global effort, with increased support for neuroscience research. These disorders often target deep brain regions and profoundly influence the structural connectivity of neuronal cells within functional circuits. Synapses, where neurons exchange information, exhibit plasticity, altering information transmission efficiency, shape, and position. Understanding the mechanisms underlying these structural changes, especially in neuronal circuits, remains limited in both healthy and affected individuals. The ERC PoC project STEDGate seeks to advance our understanding of neuronal connectivity and plasticity by developing STED-enabled holographic endo-nanoscopy for neuroscience. This ground-breaking technology promises atraumatic nanoscale in-vivo imaging of deep brain structures reaching depths up to 5 mm beneath the brain's surface. Collaborating with the start-up endeavour DeepEn, the team aims to facilitate the commercial transition of this technology. Making deep-tisue nanoscopy available globally will revolutionize our ability to monitor and understand neurological disorders and, ultimately, offer new avenues for intervention and treatment..

The main aim of the joint French-German project is to gain knowledge about the development of auditory attention and its underlying neuronal mechanisms throughout childhood. The successful control of attention is based on a balance between two important aspects of attention: voluntary attention that allows to focus on goal-relevant information and the involuntary capture of attention by task-irrelevant but potentially important events outside the current focus of attention. We focus on the interaction between these aspects of attention in typically developed children aged 4-12-years and adults as well as in a group of adolescents suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (11-17 years). In three lines of research, we will (1) dissociate the developmental trajectories of voluntary and involuntary attention and (2) characterize the influence of arousal mediated by the Locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system on these attention processes. To voluntarily focus on a task in the context of task-irrelevant background sounds or speech is a typical situation in classrooms. We therefore will study (3) the effects of irrelevant meaningful background speech on involuntary and voluntary attention mechanisms in children. The bilateral approach enables the control of language specific features by presenting German and French to German and French children, respectively. These three topics will be studied using newly developed innovative paradigms and paradigms that are well established in auditory attention research and adapted to the needs of children. We will measure and analyze brain activity using event-related potentials in the electroencephalogram, micro-saccadic behavior, pupil dilation responses, and task performance. The studies are conducted in two laboratories, which enables the exchange of formal, informal, and methodological knowledge, from which particularly young scientists of the groups will benefit, and increases reproducibility in general. This research cooperation will further benefit from the integration of several state-of-the-art methods, innovative paradigms, and excellent expertise of both laboratories and provides the basis for a new long-term French-German research collaboration. This project is of high societal relevance as it can significantly contribute to adapt learning environments to the age-related needs of children. Furthermore, our results can be applied in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of attention disorders, which are of high prevalence and associated with the majority of learning disorders.

Over 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy and 30% are resistant to our present therapies. Epilepsy, therefore, comprises a major burden to society and so there is a pressing need for new approaches to treatment. The brain extracellular matrix (ECM) plays a critical role in governing brain excitability and function. Although research into the role of the ECM in neuronal signalling and network function has advanced considerably in recent years, its full translational potential has yet to be realised. There is growing evidence for a major role of the ECM in epilepsy including the association between ECM protein mutations and epilepsy, changes in the ECM and associated proteins during the development of epilepsy and the strong association between the ECM and brain diseases associated with epilepsy including stroke, traumatic brain injury, neurodegeneration and autism. This proposal brings together considerable expertise from academic and industry partners in the biology of the ECM with experts in epilepsy research. This, therefore, represents a truly collaborative effort to determine not only the role of the ECM in the development of epilepsy but also novel approaches to treat and to prevent epilepsy. The academic partners will focus on specific research questions, whilst the industrial members will provide diagnostic, treatment and advanced research tools. The project has a strong translational theme and the combination of basic and translational science will be of great benefit for the training of young researchers. Trainees will be exposed to courses, workshops, joint research meetings and inter-laboratory visits. The focus of the training programme is on expanding knowledge and the application of such knowledge to address pertinent question relevant to the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of epilepsy, so providing an ideal insight into translational neuroscience.