Opsyris in the Lowlands, 1st ed.

Looking back at a great day with our Belgian friends from Neuropsychology Lab, KU Leuven, and our first Opsyris meeting of the Lowlands! There were great invited lectures and a lot of amazing presentations by our early career researchers. We have had interesting discussions and questions from the audience.

We started the day with two invited lectures by Prof. Vicki Anderson who shared new insights into recovery after stroke in children and Dr. Kathleen Vancleef who presented her fascinating process of developing the Oxford Visual Perception Screen.

There was a lot of time in the program for presentations by early career researchers. Before lunch, Elise Palmans, Elissa Embrechts, Eileen Bousché, Charlotte van der Waal and Khawla Ajana, all PhD candidates, presented their projects focused on hemispatial neglect.

During the lunch, the poster sessions provided an additional opportunity to discuss ongoing or upcoming research projects and to meet researchers from other groups in Belgium and The Netherlands.

We started the afternoon session with two more invited lectures. First, Dr. Niamh Merriman presented her research about an intervention to improve post-stroke cognitive impairment. Then, Prof. Joke Spikman inspired us all to look more into the social cognitive consequences of acquired brain injury.

To end the day, we had presentations about a variety of topics related to post-stroke cognition. Nienja Langerak presented the Arm Activity Tracker, Hella Thielen presented her new tool to assess Sensory Sensitivity after stroke (the MESSY), Shonima Gangaram Panday presented her work on culturally adapting the Oxford Cognitive Screen for the Surinamese population and Hanne Huygelier ended the day with a project aimed at better understanding cognitive profiles after stroke.

Thank you all for this lovely day at Leuven. See you next year!