The Hot Brain: UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology’s Climate Change conferences

As registration opens for Hot Brain 2: Climate Change and Brain Health, Professor Sanjay Sisodiya (Deputy Director for Sustainability and Climate Change, Queen Square Institute of Neurology and founder of Epilepsy Climate Change) looks back on the Institute’s first climate change conference in 2023.

Climate change is already affecting our lives.  What does it mean for the neuroscience community and people with neurological conditions, and for those working in neurological healthcare?

This one day hybrid conference highlighted the impacts of climate change across the spectrum of neuroscience, beginning dialogues on how we can respond in neuroscience.

The opening address was given by Professor Geraint Rees (UCL Vice Provost (Research, Innovation and Global Engagement) and the first three sessions each began with moving testimonies of the lived experiences of climate impacts for people with neurological conditions (Dravet Syndrome, Multiple Sclerosis and Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood).

After contemporary outlines of climate change from Professor Mark Maslin (Department of Geography, UCL) and of how the body copes with heat from Professor Michael Tipton (University of Portsmouth), presentations followed from neuroscience researchers including Dr James Mills and Dr Nathanael O’Neill (Department of Clinical and Experimental Epilepsy, Queen Square Institute of Neurology) and Professor David Henshall (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland), complemented by researchers from multi-disciplinary perspectives including:

• Dr Kris De Meyer (Director of the UCL Climate Action Unit) on the Psychology of Climate Change; Professor Anna Mavrogianni (Bartlett School of the Environment, Energy and Resources, UCL) on adapting residential care;
• Professor Michael Davies (Bartlett School of the Environment, Energy and Resources, UCL) on built environment effects;
• Dr Marina Romanello (UCL Institute for Global Health and Research Director of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change) on the health cost of Climate Change; and
• Kris Murray (Professor of Environment and Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) on the spread of disease.

International perspectives were given by Dr Angel Aledo-Serrano (Director of the Neuroscience Institute, Vithas Madrid La Milgrosa University Hospital) and Dr Bernadette Macrohon (Paediatric Neurologist, Zamboanga, Phillipines).

These were followed by Dr Natalia Kurek (Senior Clinical Lead, Greener NHS Programme) who presented on the Greener NHS plan, and Richard Smith (Chair, UK Health Alliance on Climate Change) who gave a call to action on what we can do as health professionals.

I facilitated a discussion and presented the poster award before Professor Michael Hanna (Director, Queen Square Institute of Neurology) gave the closing remarks.

Following on from the success of this first conference, ION has organised Hot Brain 2, with The Lancet Neurology. The aims of the conference are to raise awareness about the risks of climate change for the brain and neurological healthcare, to nurture global collaborative research, and to promote action against climate change and foster adaptation strategies. The conference will cover a variety of topics including temperature and the brain, and climate impacts on neurological infections and sleep.