The INA International Conference – 27 to 29 October 2024

The main themes covered in the program included Neuropsychiatric aspects of autoimmune conditions, neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and tics, as well as Functional Neurological Disorders. Key symposiums covered a wide range of topics including biomarkers, invasive and non-invasive neuromodulation, training in neuropsychiatry and consumer experience to name some. Keynote speakers covered new advances across the lifespan in the area of dementia and cerebrovascular disease to genetic underpinnings in autism while also addressing topical questions on antibody mediated disorders. Models of health care to pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions including neurostimulation will be discussed while also debating novel and emerging treatments in neuropsychiatry.

INA symposia at World Congress of Neurology – 15 October 2023

NEUROPSYCHIATRY 1 – EPILEPSY & BEHAVIOUR

• EPILEPSY & PSYCHOSIS Kosuke Kanemoto (Japan)
• SYMPOMATIC SEIZURES & PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN AN ERA OF AUTOIMMUNE NEUROPSYCHIATRY Ludgert Van Elst (Germany)
• A COMPREHENSIVE CARE PARADIGM FOR EPILEPSY & BEHAVIOUR Ennapadam S. Krishnamoorthy (India)

NEUROPSYCHIATRY 2 – THE NEUROPSYCHIATRY OF MOVEMENT DISORDERS

• PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS IN PARKINSON’S DISEASE: IMPACT OF COGNITIVE DECLINE Victor Fung (Australia)
• TOURETTE SYNDROME: IMPACT OF COMORBID ADHD, OCD AND AUTISM SPECTRUM Eileen Joyce (United Kingdom)
• MANAGING FUNCTIONAL MOVEMENT DISORDER IN A NEUROLOGY SERVICE Alan Carson (United Kingdom)

INA Colloquium, Chennai – December 2022

Download the INA colloquium report Dec 2022.
You can view the report on the INA Colloquium 2019, Chennai here.

INA-BCP Symposium meeting report – 5 October 2022

Brazilian Congress of Psychiatry

• Title: Can we really prevent dementia? The status of the evidence”
• Chair: Prof Perminder Sachdev MD, PhD, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Speakers:

• Prof Gill Livingston MD, University College, London. Title: Modifiable risk factors for dementia: the 2020 Report of the Lancet Commission
• Prof Perminder Sachdev MD, PhD, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Title: Preventing dementia: the role of biomarkers
• Prof Henry Brodaty MD, DSc, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Title: Maintain Your Brain: the largest online trial to slow cognitive decline and prevent dementia
• A/Prof Susanne Röhr, PhD, MSc, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, & University of Leipzig, Germany. Title: Global efforts on multidomain interventions against cognitive decline: current evidence and future directions

Joint meeting between INA and RCPsych, Faculty of Neuropsychiatry – 15 and 16 September 2022

The Faculty of Neuropsychiatry, Royal College of Psychiatrists held its annual conference jointly with the INA. This was a hybrid meeting with over 200 people registered to attend in person or remotely. The first in person conference since 2019. The meeting was academically excellent and wide ranging covering autoimmune psychosis, epilepsy, women in psychiatry and metabolic disorders as well as our own INA sessions.

The Cajal Lecture was given by Professor Valerie Voon who is a neuropsychiatrist dividing her time between the University of Cambridge and Fudan University, Shanghai. She discussed ‘Deep brain stimulation: Insights into mechanism of addiction’. This was a tour de force presentation about how DBS can be used to understand the underlying neural mechanisms of how goal-directed behaviour becomes habitual and compulsive.

The Lishman Lecture was given by Professor Ludvic Zrinzo, who is a neurosurgeon at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, London. He has significant experience of DBS or ablative neurosurgery for conditions such Tourette’s, OCD and depression. His talk was a persuasive evidence-based account of why psychiatrists should support neurosurgery for the most extreme, severe cases who have not been helped by standard treatments and whose life is blighted by their condition. He took a poll before and after his talk and there was compete agreement with his case!

The INA Presidential Symposium, chaired by Dr Niruj Agrawal, was on the topic of preventing dementia. There were two talks. The first was by our own INA member, Professor Ingmar Skoog who is a clinician and epidemiologist at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He presented his longitudinal data over many years of studying large populations as they age in order to understand the risk factors for dementia. We were surprised (and pleased) to learn that dementia is not as common as we are led to believe in the media and a proportion of people with signs of early dementia do not go on to develop dementia proper. Our second speaker was Professor John O’Brien who is an old age psychiatrist at the University of Cambridge. He discussed some results of the PREVENT study of ageing and dementia. More gloomy, is the finding that the development of Alzheimer neuropathology is probably even earlier than previously thought and preventative interventions, based of brain biomarkers of risk, would need to be implemented in middle age.