GRANTS AND AWARDS WINNERS

The ESCAN Early Career Award

Paula Celeste Salamone

Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience (CSAN); Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Linköping University, Sweden.

Dr. Paula C. Salamone is a Latin American clinical psychologist and neuroscientist based in Sweden. Her research investigates how brain-body communication shapes emotional and social functioning, with a particular focus on interoception and affective touch. Using multimodal approaches that combine behavioral tasks, electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and pharmacological models, her work has provided new insights into how bodily signals are integrated across cortical, spinal, and peripheral pathways. By bridging basic neuroscience with clinical populations, her research aims to identify mechanistic targets and interventions to improve emotional regulation and socio-affective processing.

How my body and others’ can change my affect? Evidence of interoceptive alterations neuropsychiatric conditions.

Affective experience is shaped not only by the brain, but also by bodily signals arising from oneself and from social interactions with others. My work examines brain-body dynamics that contribute to affective processing, and how these mechanisms are altered in neuropsychiatric conditions. I will discuss studies investigating longitudinal interoceptive alterations in patients after cardiac transplantation. I will also present evidence of altered interoception in younger and older populations with neurodegeneration, and how these alterations contribute to emotional processing. I will then show how bodily signals are processed in the context of dissociation, and how affective touch from others can contribute to affective regulation. Finally, I will present evidence that alterations in affective processing can emerge even at spinal cord levels. Together, this research suggests that affect is constructed through continuous interactions between the brain, the body, and the social environment, and that disruptions in these interactions may contribute to neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Rita Pasion

HEI-LAB (Brain.Edge – Clinical and Translational Neurosciences), Lusófona University – Porto Campus

Rita Pasion’s research is inspired by a paradigm shift toward the view that it is unlikely a single biomarker will be identified for each mental disorder. Following emerging frameworks such as HiTOP and RDoC, her work seeks to identify multimodal neurobiological constructs – integrating EEG-based measures of brain activity – that operate as transdiagnostic mechanisms explaining vulnerability to multiple forms of psychopathology.

In Search of EEG/ERP Biometrics for Predicting Vulnerability to Psychopathology

Research examining the interplay between event-related potentials and mental health has increased exponentially in recent decades, yet it has produced few innovations and still lacks clinical applicability. This is mainly due to two factors: (1) limitations in how we conceptualize mental disorders and (2) how we analyze ERP datasets. The key issue is whether we are missing robust brain biometrics to predict clinical problems. Is it possible we are not apprehending the complex structure of psychopathology and symptoms’ interrelations? Are we also missing meaningful brain temporal features that are hidden in large datasets and outside the parameters of interest analyzed so far? This talk will review the current state of the art, highlight the evidence accumulated so far, and introduce a new direction for future investigation aimed at distilling fundamental knowledge about the brain’s temporal features that better predict psychopathology manifestations.

 

The ESCAN Travel Awards

The following applicants were awarded a travel grant following a random selection process among all eligible applications:

  • Gal Rozic
  • Pınar Demir
  • Marija Stanković
  • Brodie Mangan
  • Marzia Magnanini
  • Nele Hansen
  • Martin Ernst
  • Alireza Rastegari
  • Cathy Lebeau
  • Alessia Podo

The ESCAN Family Care Grant

TBA

IMPORTANT DATES

Call for symposia

  • December 2nd, 2025 – Call for symposia opening

  • January 17th, 2026 – Call for symposia closing

  • February 3rd, 2026 – Symposia acceptance notification

Call for single presentations

(namely oral presentations and/or posters)

  • December 2nd, 2025 – Call for single presentations opening

  • February 25th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Call for single presentations deadline

  • sent on March 13th, 2026 – Single presentations notification of acceptance

Registration

  • December 3rd, 2025 – Early registration opening

  • March 20th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Early bird registration deadline

  • March 20th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Presenting authors’ registration deadline

  • March 21st, 2026 – Regular registration opening

  • May 11th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Registration deadline

  • June 3rd – 6th, 2026 – Onsite registration

ESCAN Early Career Award

  • December 1st, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Early Career Award opening

  • February 25th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Early Career Award deadline

  • March 6th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Early Career Award notification of acceptance

Travel grant

  • December 1st, 2025 (23.59 CET) – Travel grant application opening

  • February 25th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Travel grant application deadline

  • March 6th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – Travel grant notification of acceptance

ESCAN Family Care Grant

  • December 1st, 2025 (23.59 CET) – ESCAN Family Care Grant opening

  • February 25th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – ESCAN Family Care Grant deadline

  • March 6th, 2026 (23.59 CET) – ESCAN Family Care Grant notification of acceptance