“HALLO,” Robin typed on the keyboard.
“HALLO, HOW ARE YOU FEELING?” replied ELIZA, the printed words appearing instantly on the VDU [computer screen]. 
“I’M FEELING TERRIBLE,” Robin replied. 
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT PRECISELY?” 
“I’M FEELING DEPRESSED.” 
“WHY DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DEPRESSED?”
“BECAUSE I’M LONELY.” 
“DO YOU LIVE WITH YOUR FAMILY?”
“NO.”
“DO YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS?” 
“NOT REALLY.” 
“WHY IS THAT?”

Imagine you’re teaching a dog to play fetch. You throw a ball, and your dog sprints after it, picks it up, and runs back. You then reward your panting pup with a treat.

“Descending with his brother from the summit of Nanga Parbat, one of the ten highest mountains in the world, [Italian mountaineer] Reinhold Messner felt a third climber ‘descending with us, keeping a regular distance, a little to my right and a few steps away from me, just outside my field of vision’. Messner ‘could not see the figure’ but ‘was certain there was someone there,’ sensing ‘his presence’.

Launched during the European Vaccination Week in April 2021, the campaign was a collaborative effort between COLife, an alliance of six life sciences research institutions in the region of Lisbon and Oeiras, i3S in Porto, the Portuguese Society of Immunology (SPI), and Ciência Viva - the National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture. Over a span of ten days, 121 scientists from various Portuguese institutions engaged in around 400 sessions, reaching audiences from all corners of Portugal and even extending digital outreach to East Timor and São Tomé and Príncipe.

For this edition of the contest, 11 groundbreaking biomedical and health projects spearheaded by research institutions and universities in Portugal were selected. This funding underscores the commitment of the “la Caixa” Foundation to champion projects of unparalleled excellence that stand to significantly benefit public health.

Listed below is more information about the seven awardees from the four COLife institutes and their projects.

If a teacup is steaming, you’ll wait a bit longer before drinking from it. And if your fingers get caught in the door, you'll be more careful next time. These are forms of associative learning, where a positive or negative experience leads to learning behavior. We know that our cerebellum is important in this form of learning. But how exactly does this work?

On November 16th, World Pancreatic Cancer Day aims to raise awareness of this deadly disease, with the ultimate goal of improving survival rates and reducing the risks of pancreatic cancer globally.

In this audio interview, Gonçalo explains how this grant will fund ongoing work on Lesional Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that is being developed in collaboration with several members of the Neuropsychiatry Unit. The proposal is to use the results from this work to test a new treatment for OCD through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which will include the Neuropsychiatry Unit’s first clinical trial using therapeutic TMS.
 

Listen to the full audio recording to find out more!

Through the provision of these two-year collaborative research grants, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) programme aims to accelerate cutting-edge research and technology in metabolism and metabolic physiology. The objective of these grants is to map, measure, and integrate metabolism across different scales—from molecules and organelles to cells and tissues—deepening our understanding of human biology, and to investigate the metabolic processes that maintain physiological homeostasis.

Understanding Treatment-Resistant Depression

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is a particularly challenging form of major depressive disorder. As Albino Oliveira-Maia, head of the Champalimaud Foundation’s Neuropsychiatry Unit and the study’s national coordinator for Portugal, explains, “TRD is defined as the persistence of depressive symptoms despite adequate courses of at least two different antidepressant medications”. Despite repeated therapeutic attempts, these patients’ depressive symptoms remain.