Trieste will once again host the regional selection for the Neuroscience Olympics, scheduled for tomorrow, Friday 13 March at 9.30 in the Luttazzi Room (Warehouse 26). The initiative has been organised by the University of Trieste since 2010 thanks to an agreement with Immaginario Scientifico Science Centre and with the support of the Municipality of Trieste. The project is coordinated by professor Paola Lorenzon of UniTS Department of Life Sciences.

Students from 13 secondary schools will participate in the competition: IIS Linussio in Codroipo, ISIS Magrini-Marchetti in Gemona del Friuli, ISIS D'Annunzio-Fabiani in Gorizia, Liceo Buonarroti in Monfalcone, Liceo Leopardi-Majorana in Pordenone, ISIS Manzini in San Daniele del Friuli, ISIS Paschini-Linussio in Tolmezzo, ITS Deledda-Fabiani and Liceo Galilei in Trieste, and ISIS Malignani, Liceo Copernico, Liceo Marinelli and Liceo Stellini in Udine.

The participants in the competition, some of the best students in the region with a passion for neuroscience, will compete on topics such as intelligence, memory, emotions, stress, ageing, neural plasticity, sleep and diseases of the nervous system. It will be an opportunity to explore topics that are often overlooked in school programmes but are arousing increasing curiosity among young people and can open up new perspectives for study and research.

In the morning Enrico Tongiorgi, full professor of Comparative Cellular and Developmental Biology at UniTS Department of Life Sciences will talk about the brain during adolescence. The day will end with a special visit to the Immaginario Scientifico.

The winner of the competition will go on to the national final of the Neuroscience Olympiad, scheduled for 22-23 May in Camerino (Italy). Here, the Italian representative who will participate in the international competition will be selected.

The Neuroscience Olympiad is the Italian selection for the International Brain Bee (IBB). The initiative, which began in the United States in 1998, now involves over 50 countries around the world. In Italy, it is promoted by the Italian Society for Neuroscience (SINS), the leading national scientific society dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the nervous system and its diseases.