Cambridge neuroscience symposium: Interventions and recovery

Introduction

Diversity in research is a strength: problems are more holistically investigated when they are tackled from different angles. The Cambridge Neuroscience Interdisciplinary Research Centre brings together researchers from all six Schools of the University of Cambridge with the overarching ambition to conduct research that will provide the foundation for advances in understanding, preventing and treating neurological and psychiatric illness. Early gatherings of neuroscientists in Cambridge did so under umbrellas such as the Ratio Club, Thorpe Zangwill Club, Neurobiology Club and Kenneth Craik Club, but it was in 2007 under the co-directorship of Professor Alastair Compston CBE FRS FMedSci and Professor Trevor Robbins CBE FRS FMedSci that the Cambridge Neuroscience Strategic Research Initiative was launched. Cambridge Neuroscience is one of many such initiatives at Cambridge and currently boasts almost 900 members across all career stages, headed by two co-directors (one from the School of Biological Sciences and one from the School of Clinical Medicine) overseeing six research themes, each of which has its own group of convenors. To keep this machine well-oiled, Dr Dervila Glynn has served as the Strategic Manager of Cambridge Neuroscience since 2011. As well as running internal events to enhance interdisciplinary research within the university, the biennial Cambridge Neuroscience Symposium provides a platform to look externally, with invited speakers coming from across the world and 30%–50% of delegates at symposia being external to the university. The 2025 Symposium, Interventions and Recovery, had speakers covering a wide range of topics, from cell-based and genetic therapies to pharmaceutical innovations and cutting-edge neurotechnology. This symposium marked the first awarding of the Compston-Robbins Plenary, in recognition of Cambridge Neuroscience’s co-founders, and it was awarded to Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly FRS FMedSci who is not a neuroscientist but rather an expert in a broad range of metabolic and endocrine disorders, thus exemplifying the interdisciplinary nature of Cambridge Neuroscience. Here, we provide a summary of some of the key threads that arose from the meeting.

News in restorative neuroscience

The meeting brought together leading neuroscientists, whose research is driving innovation in modern therapies. Their talks showcased cell-based, gene-based and neurotechnological interventions that are advancing restorative neuroscience. For example, the potential of pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neurons and human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for treating neurodegenerative diseases, especially Parkinson’s (PD), was highlighted. Long-term data on dopaminergic cell transplantation in patients underscored both significant progress and remaining challenges. Specifically, encouraging motor recovery was observed, but a subset of patients also experienced graft-induced involuntary movements. Outcomes of larger, ongoing and future trials are crucial to inform future cell transplantation trials (Barker and Parmar, 2025).

Gene therapy has seen remarkable advances in adeno-associated virus (AAV)–based delivery for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. Researchers also highlighted the restoration of cellular bioenergetics in inherited neurometabolic disorders through nuclear gene correction and mitochondrial genome manipulation. Complementary studies using patient-derived iPSCs and hESCs are now advancing gene-repair and small-molecule rescue approaches like these. Another gene therapy approach presented a major leap forward in anti-epileptic strategies, introducing a virally delivered gene therapy that allows neurons to detect hyperexcitability and suppress seizures autonomously (Almacellas Barbanoj et al., 2024; Qiu et al., 2022).

Technological frontiers were explored alongside these biological ones. New technologies from the microelectronic industry have been integrated into implantable devices, including biocompatible cuff implants, which not only record activity but also modulate it at sub-nerve resolution (Carnicer-Lombarte et al., 2024) to regain neurological function.

Finally, advances in immune-modulating biologics are transforming how the processes of inflammation and regeneration are understood in the central nervous system. The discussion of how manipulating regulatory T cells to foster regeneration might provide therapeutic benefit also highlighted the importance of the immune system in supporting neural recovery (Liston et al., 2024).

Recognising the importance of the immune system

Indeed, beyond therapeutics, the immune system was also in the spotlight in terms of understanding disease. The neurocentric framing of brain health was challenged, with speakers converging on a view in which glial and immune processes are central to circuit integrity and disease progression (Wawrzyniak et al., 2025). Indeed, immunometabolic signalling among microglia, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes emerged as a core symposium theme (Peruzzotti-Jametti et al., 2024).

Exciting data were also presented showing how, in demyelinating conditions, lesions could remodel neuronal mitochondrial networks, alter adenosine triphosphate (ATP) release at neuron-mitochondrial junctions and trigger signalling that recruits and reprogrammes microglia, causing inflammation to spread into grey matter (Hu and Tao, 2024). Building on these cellular dynamics, impaired hormonal signalling was shown to reshape brain metabolism with downstream effects on glial phenotypes and neuroimmune tone (Lockhart et al., 2020). In addition, the role that astrocytes play in cholesterol homeostasis regulation was shown to have effects on synaptic maintenance (Spanos et al., 2024).

From mechanisms to modulation, a recurring theme was that metabolic rewiring of immune cells can redirect central brain inflammation. Regulatory T-cells were discussed with the potential of low-dose interleukin-2 to induce pro-repair programmes presented (Dashwood et al., 2025). Extending from mechanism to population impact, systemic immunometabolic dysfunction in severe mental illness was shown to be linked to alterations in brain structure and function (Upthegrove and Khandaker, 2019).

Methodological advances are accelerating the rate at which major insights are made. Single-cell and spatial -omics delineate disease-associated glial states that align with clinical trajectories. In parallel, human iPSC-derived glia, neurons and patient-informed organoids reveal species-specific biology and support scalable pharmacology, while in vivo imaging and fluid biomarkers translate glial dynamics into measurable, trial-ready endpoints (Alexandros Lalousis et al., 2023; Park et al., 2025; Peruzzotti-Jametti et al., 2024; Shum et al., 2024).

Taken together, these strands position non-neuronal cells as integral to brain health and pathology, motivating the development of therapeutic strategies that target immunometabolic crosstalk alongside neuronal mechanisms.

Benefits of blitzing and the power of posters

Complementing talks from senior academics were sessions showcasing the work of early-career researchers from Cambridge and beyond. Attendees were invited to present posters, and from submitted abstracts, 10 presenters were selected by the Cambridge Neuroscience Steering Committee to give 3 min data blitz presentations. Presenters spanned from master’s students to postdoctoral researchers, covering themes such as neuroinflammation, consciousness and ageing. Feedback from data blitz speakers demonstrates how important including sessions like this in a major meeting can be:

The [data blitz] format pushed me to sharpen my message and distil almost a year’s work into just three minutes, which was both challenging and rewarding. It also sparked great interest in my poster. (Matthew Bailey, PhD student)

I really enjoyed presenting at the data blitz and found it a great opportunity to share ideas and connect with other researchers. (Aygun Badalova, PhD student)

Group leaders emphasised that posters and data blitzes are not just a training opportunity for early-career researchers but are ‘mutually very beneficial’ for everyone. Beyond being a ‘very efficient way’ to keep up with new techniques and research, it is often these sessions that spark collaborations. One group leader shared just how directly impactful they can be:

At the Symposium, I was approached by a recent PhD graduate who had an idea for a new experiment, building on my own work and her experience. Within a couple of weeks, we have written a small grant application together, to attempt some preliminary work on the idea, which might lead to a larger grant or Fellowship proposal. As a PI, you don’t need to give a talk for colleagues and students to recognise you, and approach you with a question or idea! You just have to be open-minded, and be prepared to think sideways.

These early-career-focused sessions really captured one of the core purposes of conferences: to showcase emerging research, widen horizons and foster discussion.

Diverse perspectives help pinpoint progress

Meetings that bring together an interdisciplinary neuroscience community and span across the generations create wonderful opportunities for discussions on the progress that has been made in therapeutic developments. This was typified by discussion on the current understanding of the use of stem cell-derived dopaminergic neurons to treat PD. Clinical interventions to supplement dopamine loss have been ongoing since the 1960s, with attempts to implant dopaminergic cells into the brain under various guises having showed limited success. However, advances in the creation of stem cell-derived dopaminergic progenitors that can be delivered therapeutically have garnered great excitement, as detailed above (Barker and Parmar, 2025). Delegates had the pleasure of receiving a detailed update on one such clinical trial with the unique perspective of a career spent translating therapies from bench to clinic, inspiring researchers to continually contextualise their own work within the clinical space.

Forging a path forwards

The Interventions and Recovery Symposium highlighted how interdisciplinary, collaborative neuroscience drives innovation and accelerates the development of treatments for neurological disease. Meetings like this play an essential role in confronting the field’s most persistent challenges while showcasing new approaches to understanding and treating brain disorders.

Many of the talks acknowledged that, even with the remarkable progress in cell-based therapies, genomic medicine and neurotechnology, translating these breakthroughs into effective, accessible interventions remains a significant challenge. Developing iPSC/hESC-derived neurons that are functionally mature and accurately model age-related disease continues to limit experimental and therapeutic reliability. Achieving targeted and sustained delivery within the central nervous system also presents major hurdles for effective cell replacement therapies. Rapid advances in bioelectronic medicine offer extraordinary potential but raise important ethical and safety concerns regarding long-term use.

However, the overall tone of the meeting was one of optimism. Talks explored how AI is now being used to accelerate drug discovery for targets once thought undruggable and how gene therapy is being used for drug-resistant epilepsy (Qiu et al., 2022; Santambrogio et al., 2025). The reprogramming of glial cells was presented as a promising method to regulate neuroinflammation. Other presentations showed how engineered bioelectronic devices can restore physiological balance in PD and epilepsy and how ion channel-driven diseases are now being tackled through the development of long-acting biologics.

By bringing together expertise from across disciplines, the symposium demonstrated not only the challenges that remain but also the strategies that will address them. Indeed, to quote one of Cambridge Neuroscience’s founding co-directors, Professor Alastair Compston:

What the symposium did (for me) was threefold: it showed that neuroscience has now moved from description to intervention; it did this across a range of clinical problems and therapeutic technologies; and it recognised that the transition is complex requiring many emerging issues to be addressed simultaneously. As some of the speakers made clear, the meeting not only addressed targeting the pathogenesis of disease but also highlighted the importance of symptomatic treatment and recovery of function through engineering methods. When Cambridge Neuroscience began in 2007, we had begun to realise that the notion of brain repair which had floated so successfully in the 1990s was looking premature. Neuroscience was still largely observational. There followed some flickers of transition into meaningful mechanism-based therapeutics supporting the notion that treatment involves both limiting and repairing the damage. As the dementia panel and several speakers rehearsed, these successes changed cultural attitudes within a risk averse society from vain hope to realistic expectation but with an understanding of the commitment and participation on which success depends. With significant progress already made, the further stages in achieving restorative neurology depend on maintaining harmony between the basic science and clinical communities of Cambridge Neuroscience.

In summary, the eighth biennial Cambridge Neuroscience Symposium highlighted a range of areas in which basic research is leading to clinical translation.