Past Plenary and Medal Lecture Speakers
2023 Brisbane
Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Prof Marcello Rosa, (Monash University)
International Plenary Lecture - A/Prof Saul Villeda, (University of California, San Francisco)
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture - Prof Elizabeth Coulson, (The University of Queensland)
ANS Plenary Lecture - Prof Michael Breakspear, (University of Newcastle)
Eccles Plenary Lecture - Prof George Paxinos, (Neuroscience Research Australia)
2022 Melbourne
Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Prof Anthony Hannan (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) - Gene-environment interactions modulating brain function within and between generations
International Plenary Lecture - Professor Tara Spires-Jones, (University of Edinburgh) - Imaging synaptic changes in Alzheimer’s disease
Eccles Plenary - Prof Christopher Lind, (University of Western Australia) - Neurosurgery on the experimental spectrum
ANS Plenary - Prof Helen Cooper, (Queensland Brain Institute) - Deciphering the role of autism genes in cortical development: from stem cells to synapses
2021 Online
ANS Plenary Lecture – Prof Bernard Balleine, (University of New South Wales) - The cortical and striatal circuits subserving goal-directed action
AW Campbell Award Lecture - Dr Christina Mo, (University of Chicago) -Transthalamic cortical pathways - underappreciated routes of information processing
Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Prof Linda Richards, (Queensland Brain Institute) - Wiring the brain for interhemispheric communication
Eccles Plenary Lecture - Prof Lars Ittner, (Macquarie University) - On the role of the tau protein in Alzheimer's disease and beyond
Nina Kondelos Plenary Lecture - Prof Elizabeth Coulson, (Queensland Brain Institut)e - Causes and consequences of cholinergic degeneration with a focus on dementia
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Prof Clare Parish, (Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health) - Next generation stem cells therapies for Parkinson’s Disease
International Plenary Lecture - Nobel Laureate, Prof Edvard Moser - Neural population dynamics of the entorhinal cortex
2020 Online
Eccles Lecture - Kate Drummond (Royal Melbourne Hospital) – Quality of life in brain tumour patients ‐ do we understand it and what can we do about it?
2020 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Robyn Brown (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) - Why do we overeat? Unravelling the neural mechanisms underlying maladaptive eating behaviour
2020 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote – Kay Double (University of Sydney)(presented by Ben Trist) - Hiding in plain sight – what does a new pathology mean for Parkinson’s disease?
2019 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Philip Ryan (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health )(presented in 2020) - The neurocircuitry of fluid satiation
2019 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote - Erica Fletcher (University of Melbourne) (presented in 2020) – The role of microglia in regulating retinal homeostasis
2019 Adelaide
ANS Plenary Lecture – Jose Manuel Alonso (State University of New York) - Chiaroscuro in the visual brain
International Plenary Lecture - Hollis Cline (Department of Neuroscience at Scripps Research) - Proteomic analysis of visual system organisation, function and plasticity
Eccles Lecture – Pamela McCombe (University of Queensland) - Sex differences in neurological disease
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture - Selena Bartlett (Queensland University of Technology) – Neuroplasticity neuroscience, multi-generational trauma, and the treatment of addiction and obesity
Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Geoffrey Goodhill (Queensland Brain Institute) - Computational models of neural development
2018 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote – Janet Keast (University of Melbourne) - Reconstructing sacral visceral circuits for bioelectronic medicine
2018 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Wendy Imlach (Monash University) - Targeting changes in spinal circuit function to treat chronic pain
2018 Brisbane
ANS Plenary Lecture - Alan Mackay-Sim (Griffith University) (Australian of the Year 2017) – Stem cells as models of brain diseases and for drug discovery
International Plenary Lecture - Alison Goate (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York) – What has genetics taught us about mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis?
Eccles Lecture - Neville Knuckey (University of Western Australia) – Peaks, peptides and protection
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture - Cliff Abraham (University of Otago, Dunedin) – Metaplasticity: Cellular memories that shape future plasticity
Elspeth McLachlan Plenary Lecture - Glenda Halliday (University of Sydney) – Are neurons really the most important in neurodegenerative disease?
2017 AW Campbell Award Keynote - Susanna Park (University of Sydney) – Neurological complications in cancer survivors: Assessment strategies, risk factors and treatments
2017 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote - Ulrike Grünert (University of Sydney) – Visual pathways: From the retina to the brain
2017 Sydney
ANS Plenary Lecture – Jürgen Götz (Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research, Queensland Brain Institute) - Pathomechanisms and treatment strategies
International Plenary Lecture – Junichi Nabekura (National Institute of Physiological Sciences, Japan) - Long term plasticity of neuronal circuits in development and recovery
Eccles Lecture – Kathryn North (Murdoch Children’s Research Institute) - Precision Medicine: The Future is Now
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Andrew Lawrence (Florey Institute of Neuroscience & Mental Health) - Neurochemical mechanisms of reward-seeking
2016 AW Campbell Award Keynote – Stephen Abbott (Heart Research Institute, University of Sydney) - Role of the median preoptic nucleus in the control of water consumption
2016 Nina Kondelos Award Keynote – Naomi Wray (Institute for Molecular Biology & Queensland Brain Institute) – New insights from human genetic studies of brain-related traits
2016 Hobart
ANS Plenary Lecture – Massimo Hilliard (Queensland Brain Institute) - Axonal fusion: an alternative mechanism to repair injured axons
International Plenary Lecture – Michael Hausser (University College London,) – All-optical interrogation of neural circuits
Eccles Lecture – Jeffrey Rosenfeld (Monash University) - Bionic vision and the future of the brain-machine interface
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – David Small (University of Tasmania) - Emerging ideas in Alzheimer's disease research: Abeta, APP and neural network dysfunction
2015 Cairns (joint meeting with ISN and APSN)
ISN Plenary Lecture 1 - Yoshinori Ohsumi (Tokyo Institute of Technology) - Molecular dissection of autophagy - intracellular recycling system
ISN Plenary Lecture 2 - Franz-Ulrich Hartl (Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry, Munich) - Molecular chaperones: guardians of the proteome
ISN Plenary Lecture 3 - Ellen Closs (Johannes Gutenberg- University, Mainz) - Why transporters of simple cationic amino acids matter
ISN Plenary lecture 4 – Leslie Vosshall (The Rockefeller University, New York, USA) – Understanding and modulating mosquito attraction to human
Lawrie Austin Lecture: Ashley Bush (Mental Health Research Institute, University of Melbourne) - Iron in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease
Eccles Lecture: Robert Vink (University of South Australia) - Increased intracranial pressure after acute CNS injury: a basic scientist's perspective of a clinical problem
2014 Adelaide
ANS Plenary Lecture – Marcello Costa (Flinders University Medical Centre) - 20/20 insight in Neurogastroenterology
Overseas Plenary Lecture – Moses Chao (Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Science, New York) - The future of neurotrophic factors
Eccles Lecture – Perry Bartlett (Queensland Brain Institute) - Producing new neurons in the adult brain: How is it regulated and what is the use?
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Trevor Kilpatrick (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) - Unravelling the neurobiology of MS
2013 Melbourne
ANS Plenary Lecture – Margaret Morris (University of New South Wales) – Food on the brain
Overseas Plenary Lecture – Nancy Ip (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology) – Elucidating receptor tyrosine kinase-dependent signalling in neural circuit assembly and plasticity
Eccles Lecture – Ingrid Scheffer (University of Melbourne) – Deciphering the epilepsy genome and its impact on clinical practice
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Paul Martin (University of Sydney) – Colour vision, colour blindness, and importance of an eye for detail
2012 Gold Coast
ANS Plenary Lecture – Heather Young (University of Melbourne) – Generating enteric neurons during development and for cell therapy
Overseas Plenary Lecture – Feng Zhang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) – Optogenetics: Development and application
Eccles Lecture – Marcus Stoodley (Macquarie University) – Elucidating the pathophysiology of syringomyelia
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Janusz Lipski (University of Auckland) – A brief history of the nigral dopaminergic neurone, L-DOPA and TRPM2 channel: considerations for Parkinson’s Disease
2011 Auckland
ANS Plenary Lecture – Seong-Seng Tan (Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health) – Mechanisms underpinning neuron survival following brain injury
Overseas Plenary Lecture – Tobias Bonhoeffer (Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Munich) - How activity changes synapses in the mammalian brain
Eccles Lecture – Terence O'Brien (University of Melbourne) - New approaches to treat the sacred disease
Lawrie Austin Plenary Lecture – Peter Dunkley (University of Newcastle) - Catecholamine synthesis in response to stress; the timing of tyrosine hydroxylase phosphorylation is everything
2010 Sydney (joint meeting with the Australian Physiological Society)
ANS Plenary Lecture – Herbert Herzog (Garvan Institute) - The role of NPY in health and disease: insights from transgenic and knockout models
ANS/AuPS Overseas Plenary Lecture – Gilles Laurent (Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt-am-Main) - Circuits and dynamics for olfactory coding
The Physiological Society (UK) Exchange Lecture - David Attwell (University College London) - Brain power: How the brain’s energy supply determines the computational power of neurons
AuPS Invited Lecture - David Adams (Health Innovations Research Institute, RMIT) – Analgesic conotoxins modulating pain pathways
2009 Canberra
ANS Plenary Lecture: Greg Stuart (John Curtin School of Medical Research) -The action potential
ANS Overseas Plenary Lecture: Matthew Wilson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - Sequential event memory formation and reactivation in the hippocampus and beyond
Eccles Lecture: Peter Reilly (University of Adelaide)- Neurotrauma management: prevention, protection and repair
Lawrie Austin Lecture: Phil Beart (Howard Florey Institute) - Adventures in neurochemistry: people, places and puzzles
2008 Hobart
ANS Plenary Lecture: Phil Robinson (Children’s Medical Research Institute, Sydney) - Dynamin: linking endocytosis to synaptic transmission
ANS Overseas Lecture: Carla Shatz (Harvard Medical School) - Tuning up circuits: brain waves and immune genes
Eccles Lecture: Gary Egan (Howard Florey Institute) - Investigating dynamical brain networks using high resolution structural and functional MRI
ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Macdonald Christie (University of Sydney) - Neural mechanisms of opioid tolerance and dependence
2007 Melbourne (joint meeting with the IBRO Congress of Neuroscience)
Plenary 1: Peter Agre (Johns Hopkins University) - Aquaporin water channels: from atomic structure to clinical medicine
Plenary 2: Norio Akaike (Kumamoto Health Science University) - Functional studies at a single excitatory or inhibitory synapse
ANS Plenary Lecture/ IBRO Plenary 3: Mandyam Srinivasan (Queensland Brain Institute) - Small brains, smart minds: vision, navigation and cognition in honeybees, and applications to robotics
ANS Overseas Lecture/ IBRO Plenary 4: Lily Jan (University of California, San Francisco) - Potassium channels
Plenary 5: Herta Flor (University of Heidelberg) - The neuropsychobiology of pain
Plenary 6: Edvard Moser (Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Trondheim) - Entorhinal grid cells and hippocampal memory
Plenary 7: Mu Ming Poo (Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai / University of California, Berkeley) - Spike timing-dependent plasticity: from synapse to perception
Plenary 8: Simon Gandevia (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Changing principles of human motor control
2006 Sydney
ANS Plenary Lecture: Sarah Dunlop (University of Western Australia) - Promoting recovery after CNS and PNS injury
ANS Overseas Lecture: Clifford Saper (Harvard Medical School) Hypothalamic regulation of sleep and circadian rhythms
Eccles Lecture: Frank Mastaglia (University of Western Australia) Transcranial brain stimulation: the past, the present and the future
ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Ian Gibbins (Flinders University) Somewhere over the neurochemical rainbow: synaptic heterogeneity, Schwann cells and slow transmission
2005 Perth
ANS Plenary Lecture: Bruce Walmsley (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - From ear to eternity: unlocking fundamental synaptic and neuronal mechanisms in the auditory pathways of the brain
ANS Overseas Lecture: Larry Swanson (University of Southern California, Los Angeles) - Cerebral hemisphere networks controlling motivation and emotion
Eccles Lecture: Pankaj Sah (Queensland Brain Institute) - Synaptic transmission and plasticity in the amygdala: a cellular model for fear conditioning
ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Ida Llewellyn-Smith (Flinders University) - Unravelling spinal circuits that control autonomic function
Special Lecture: Istvan Mody (University of California, Los Angeles) - Tonic inhibition in the crosshairs of hormones and drugs
2004 Melbourne
ANS Plenary Lecture: Peter Schofield (Garvan Institute) - The inhibitory glycine receptor: molecular studies of structure, function and disease
ANS Overseas Lecture: Eric Kandel (Columbia University, NY) - The long and short of long term memory
Eccles Lecture: Andrew Kaye (University of Melbourne) - The biology and treatment of cerebral glioma
ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: Glenda Halliday (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Neurodegenerative dementias: dysfunction due to neuron loss, glial changes or protein aggregates?
Special Lecture: Robert Desimone (Salk Institute) - Top- and bottom-up neural mechanisms for attention selection in visual cortex
2003 Adelaide
ANS Plenary Lecture: Colin Masters (University of Melbourne) - Molecular dissection of the pathways leading to Alzheimer’s disease
ANS Overseas Lecture: Robert Malenka (Stanford University) - Synaptic plasticity: the brain’s response to experience
Eccles Lecture: Richard Faull (University of Auckland) -Stem cells in the adult human brain
ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: David Adams (University of Queensland) - A cone snail’s view of the nervous system
Overseas Lecture: Jean-Pierre Changeux (Institut Pasteur, Paris) - The acetylcholine nicotinic receptor: an allosteric protein involved in intercellular communication
2002 Sydney
ANS Plenary Lecture: Peter Gage (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - A reductionist approach to electrical activity in the nervous system
ANS Overseas Lecture: Mu-Ming Poo (Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai / University of California, Berkeley) - Neuronal plasticity at growth cones and synapses
Eccles Lecture: Sam Berkovic (University of Melbourne) - Genetic and acquired causes of epilepsies: is there a common neurobiological substrate?
ANS Lawrie Austin Lecture: John Rostas (University of Newcastle) - Molecular interactions at synapses that modify neuronal activity
2001 Brisbane
ANS Plenary Lecture: Elspeth McLachlan (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Synaptic transmission in sympathetic ganglia and its modification after injury to the nervous system
ANS Overseas Lecture: Marc Tessier-Lavigne (University of California, San Francisco) -Wiring the brain: molecular mechanisms of axon guidance in vertebrates
Eccles Lecture: Fred Mendelsohn (Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology) - The role of brain angiotensin systems in central
homeostatic mechanisms
FASTS Lecture: Mandyam Srinivasan (Australian National University) - Small brains, smart minds: insect vision, navigation and cognition
APSN Plenary Lecture: Max Recasens (Université Montpellier II, Paris) - Brain plasticity and changes in neurotransmitter phenotype
APSN Plenary Lecture: Katsuhiko Mikoshiba (University of Tokyo) - IP3 receptor/Ca2+ channel: a key molecule in development and plasticity
2000 Melbourne
ANS Plenary Lecture: Perry Bartlett (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research) - From a stem cell to a dead cell: regulating the life of a neuron
ANS Overseas Lecture: Mriganka Sur (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) - Rewiring cortex: patterned activity and the development of cortical networks
Eccles Lecture: Michael Cousins (University of Sydney) - Persistent pain: a disease entity?
1999 Hobart
ANS Plenary Lecture: Judy Morris (Flinders University) - Co-transmission and cardiovascular control: rewriting the rules
ANS Overseas Lecture: Bill Newsome (USA) - Seeing motion in depth: from neural circuits to perceptual decisions
Eccles Lecture: Simon Gandevia (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - From motor commands to motoneurones
FASTS Lecture: Graeme Clark (University of Melbourne) - The bionic ear in the second and third millenia
Special Plenary Lecture: John Nicholls (Biozentrum der Universität Basel) - Contributions of neurobiology to clinical neurology
Special Plenary Lecture: John Steeves (University of British Columbia) - CNS repair: what are the goals and where has there been progress?
FASTS Lecture: Sandra Rees (University of Melbourne) - Brain development during pregnancy: what happens when things go wrong
1998 Canberra
ANS Plenary Lecture: Dexter Irvine (Monash University) - Functional organisation and reorganisation in auditory cortex
ANS Overseas Lecture: Bert Sakmann (Max-Planck-Institut für medizinische Forschung, Heidelberg, Germany) - Grey matter(s)?
Eccles Lecture: M.J. Fulham (Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney)- Functional imaging in the neurosciences: the role of PET, MR and SPECT
FASTS Lecture: Graham Johnston (University of Sydney) - A chemist's look at the brain
1997 Newcastle
ANS Plenary Lecture: Mark Rowe (University of New South Wales) - The brain and sensation: organisation and processing for touch and kinaesthesia
ANS Overseas Lecture: Denis Baylor (Stanford University, USA) - Cellular mechanisms of single photon detection
Eccles Lecture: John Willoughby (Flinders University) - Generalised epilepsy: possible mechanisms
FASTS Lecture: Jonathon Stone (University of Sydney) - Death and survival in the nervous system: our increasing understanding of neurodegenerative diseases
ANS Special Guest Lecture: Howard Schulman (Stanford, USA) - Spatial and temporal regulation of calcium signalling
1996 Adelaide
ANS Plenary Lecture: Wickliffe Abraham (University of Otago) - Metaplasticity: the
activity dependent regulation of synaptic plasticity
ANS Overseas Lecture: Geoff Burnstock (University College London) - Purinergic receptors
Eccles Lecture: John Morris (University of Sydney) - The art and science of clinical observation
FASTS Lecture: John Chalmers (Flinders University) - Brain and blood pressure
1995 Perth
ANS Plenary Lecture: Richard Mark (Research School of Biological Sciences, ANU) - Development of sensory pathways in a mammalian brain: anatomy and physiology
ANS Overseas Lecture: Albert Aguayo (Montréal General Hospital Research Institute) - Survival regrowth and reconnection of injured neurons in the adult mammalian brain
Eccles Lecture: Bill Blessing (Flinders University) - Just one nervous system
FASTS Lecture: Richard Faull (University of Auckland) - Neurological diseases and neural transplantation
1994 Sydney
ANS Plenary Lecture: David Vaney (University of Queensland) -The neuronal architecture of the mammalian retina
ANS Overseas Lecture: U. Jack McMahan (Stanford University) - Composition and function of the matrix in synaptic cleft
ANS Special Guest Lecture: Trevor Lamb (University of Cambridge) - Signalling in G-protein cascades: the photoreceptor as an example
ANS Guest Lecture: Timothy Bliss (National Institute for Medical Research, UK) - Retrograde messengers in long-term potentiation
Eccles Lecture: Peter Blumbergs (Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, Adelaide) -Traumatic axonal injury
FASTS Lecture: Clive Harper (University of Sydney) - Are we drinking our neurones away?
1993 Melbourne
ANS Plenary Lecture: Marcello Costa (Flinders University) - The enteric nervous system
ANS Overseas Lecture: Stanley B. Prusiner (University of California, San Francisco) - Chemistry and biology of prion diseases
ANS Special Guest Lecture: Jack Feldman (University of California, Los Angeles) - Rhythmic pattern generators: cellular and synaptic mechanisms underlying breathing movements
Eccles Lecture: Ian McCloskey (Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute) - Postural stabilizing reflexes in humans
FASTS Lecture: Colin L. Masters (University of Melbourne) - The enigma of amyloid in the causation of Alzheimer’s disease
1992 Adelaide
ANS Plenary Lecture: David Hirst (University of Melbourne) - Neuroeffector transmission in the nervous system
ANS Overseas Lecture: Bertil Hille (University of Washington) - G protein-coupled receptors, channels, modulation and mood
FASTS Lecture: Jim Lance (University of New South Wales) - Consequences of neurology to the health of the nation
ANS Special Guest Lecture: Hugh Perry (University of Oxford) - The role of macrophages in degeneration and regeneration in the peripheral nervous system
1991 Dunedin
ANS Plenary Lecture: Ian McCloskey (University of New South Wales) - Experiments on human motor control
1990 Queensland
ANS Plenary Lecture: David Curtis (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - Micropharmacology of central synaptic terminals (Delivered in 1991)
ANS Overseas Lecture: Roger Nicoll (University of California, San Francisco) - Mechanisms underlying long-term potentiation: a cellular model for memory
ANS Overseas Lecture: J. Maynard Ritchie (Yale University) - Ion channels in Schwann and glial cells
ISN Visiting Lecture: Bernard Agranoff (University of Michigan) - Biochemistry of second messengers
1989 Monash
ANS Plenary Lecture: Lyn Beazley (University of Western Australia) - Development of the visual system
1988 Canberra
ANS Plenary Lecture: John Furness (Flinders University) - Structure, neurochemistry and function of the enteric nervous system
1987 Newcastle
ANS Plenary Lecture: John Pettigrew (University of Queensland) - Ramblings in comparative neuroscience
ISN Visiting Lecture: Willem Gispen (Rudolf Magnus Institute for Pharmacology, Utrecht) - Phosphoprotein B50 in neuronal function
1986 Perth
ANS Plenary Lecture: Stephen Redman (John Curtin School of Medical Research) - Excitatory synaptic transmission in the central nervous system
1985 Adelaide
ANS Plenary Lecture: Jonathan Stone (University of New South Wales) - Patterns of retinal embryogenesis
1984 Canberra
ANS Plenary Lecture: James Lance (University of New South Wales) - Brain stem control of the cephalic circulation and its possible relation to migraine
1983 Melbourne
ANS Plenary Lecture: Max Bennett (University of Sydney) - The development of neurons and their synaptic connections
1982 Sydney
ANS Plenary Lecture: David Cohen (Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland) - Neural correlates of classical conditioning in the pigeon
1981 Adelaide
ANS Plenary Lecture: Hugh Niall (Florey Institute) - Neuropeptides