Sex Hormones and the Brain Symposium

The human brain integrates hormonal information across the life span from fetal through adult life in ways that matters for brain health and disease. Danish Diabetes and Endocrine Academy (DDEA) and NAD invites you to a two-day international symposium that is centered on bringing together insights from a diverse range of methods and models as well as clinical data illuminating brain structure, function and hormone signaling interactions through all stages of life. Thus, the themes will span an arch from fetal brain development, adolescence, perinatal transitions to the aging brain. In particular the female brain will serve as a model system to illustrate brain signatures of hormonal transition phases across natural reproductive events as well as exogenous hormone exposures such as hormonal contraceptives. We will bring together world-leading experts in the field and early career researchers and facilitate high-level scientific discussions and networking.

Event description

The programme spans four sessions. From Fetal Life and Early Differentiation through Adolescence and Adulthood to Healthy Brain Aging – anchored by international speakers such as Associate Professor Jessica Tollkuhn (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, US), Professor Inger Sundström Poromaa (Uppsala University, SE), Professor Julia Sacher (Max Planck Institute, DE), Professor Prabha Chandra (NIMHANS, Bengaluru, IN), Professor Claudia Barth (Charité – University Medicine Berlin, DE), and Professor Tina Kold Jensen (University of Southern Denmark, DK), among others. All accepted abstracts will be presented in an open poster session, with more details to follow after the registration deadline.

Beyond the podium, the symposium is built for connection: a networking dinner, a shared networking activity, and plenty of unstructured time to seek out future collaborators — across fields, across sectors, and across borders.

Across two days, you will:

• Get state-of-the-art insight into brain development, sex differentiation, and aging from international frontrunners in the field – spanning how sex hormones shape the brain from fetal life onward, and how early-life environmental factors may leave a lasting mark on neurodevelopment.
• Follow the hormone – brain relationship into adulthood, exploring how hormonal shifts across life intersect with mood, mental health, and cognition — with perspectives from across the globe that broaden the usual frame of reference.
• Explore the frontier of healthy brain aging, including current research on menopause, hormone therapy, and long-term brain health.
• Present your own research through a poster session or a short talk selected from submitted abstracts.
• Build your network – meet future collaborators across disciplines, sectors, and borders in an intimate, high-level scientific setting

Target group

The symposium is intended clinicians and researchers at all levels working within any field of sex hormones and the brain in Denmark and abroad. However, we also welcome undergraduate students, representatives from the life science industry and the private sector and interested editors at scientific journals, to attend.

We especially encourage early career researchers to submit an abstract for the poster session. This is an opportunity to get feedback from senior international researchers in an informal, engaged setting. Selected abstracts may also be invited to give a short talk.

Participation is free of charge, but spaces are limited to 50 participants. Places are allocated on a first come, first served basis; if the symposium is overbooked, priority will be given to those who have submitted an abstract.

Additional information and abstract submission

Additional information about abstract submission, accommodation etc. can be found on the DDEA website. Registration via DDEA.