Nuno Madeira , Hospital da Luz Coimbra psychiatrist, won the Science Award Mental Health 2023, established by the Portuguese-American Foundation for Development (FLAD), the major scientific award in the country for research in the area of mental health. In the amount of 300 thousand euros, the award is destined to finance young researchers, in collaboration with research centres in the United States, along three years. Nuno Madeira’s project aims to test a new technique of brain stimulation, to help in the social cognitive difficulties of people with schizophrenia. Nuno Madeira has been working on this disease for over 10 years. The project now distinguished by FLAD – entitled “BS2C – Non-invasive Brain Stimulation for Social Cognitive Impairment in Schizophrenia” – was developed by a multidisciplinary team of the Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research Centre (CIBIT) and the Institute of Medical Psychology of the University of Coimbra Medicine School. They will be working in partnership with the Biological Affect Modulation Lab of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “We are set out to develop a clinical trial, where we will test a technique of brain neuromodulation, the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Our hypothesis, based on our research and on the results by international teams, is that the stimulation of a specific area of our ‘social brain’ may reduce the social cognitive difficulties faced by people with schizophrenia”, explained Nuno Madeira, in a statement to the DN newspaper.
