Institute of Neurosciences, Guangzhou Medical University

Institute of Neurosciences of Guangzhou Medical College (ION-GZMC) was approved to be established by Guangzhou Municipal on September 26, 1986 and inaugurated on October 1988. Professor Zhao-ming Cai, the vice-president of Guangzhou Medical College was the first director and Dr. Hsiang-lai Wen was invited as the honored director. Professor Xue-fen Lu assumed the director position in 1995. Since 2002, Professor Wei-ping Liao has been the director of the ION. During its early stage, the institute got strong supports from oversea Chinese and organizations, such as Dr. Hsiang-lai Wen(a Hong Kong famous neurosurgeon, former chairman of Pacific Asia region Neurosurgery Academic Association) and Shan-heng He Charity Fund etc. After 20 years of development, the institute has already expanded to a large neuroscience center for basic neuroscience research, medical treatment and teaching in China.

The institute consists of Department of Neurology, Department of Neurosurgery and Department of basic science. The Neurological department is composed of 2 inpatient wards, specialty outpatient, emergency, Epilepsy Center and Clinical Electro-physiological Diagnostic Center. At present, there are 11 professors and 7 vice-professors. Many complicatedly neurological diseases can be diagnosed and treated here. The cerebral vascular diseases group treated over 1500 inpatients annually. A spot of social prevention and control for CVD has been established in Guzhen, Zhongshan City and it has become an example in China. In 1996, the department established the first epilepsy center in South China. More than 3000 patients (over 1000 new cases) got service here per annum. The pediatric neurological experts also have done excellent works in child mental retardation, De La Tourrette Syndrome and Fragile-X syndrome etc.

There are 100 beds in department of Neurosurgery. Approximately 1200 patients were treated and 810 operations and procedures were performed here per year. The department has been advancing in almost every field of neurosurgery and now there are 23 neurosurgeons, 3 professors, 6 associate professors and 14 assistant professors. There are 4 operating rooms dedicated to neurosurgical procedures and a dedicated 6 beds Neuro ICU. The department has 5 divisions: Cerebrovascular Surgery, Skull Base Surgery and Brain Tumors Surgery, Pediatric Neurosurgery, Head Injury and Spinal Surgery and Stereotactic Neurosurgery, carrying out operations of microsurgery and stereotactic neurosurgery for brain tumor, cerebrovascular disease, neurological functional disorder and spinal lesion. In the past 5 years, more than 2500 brain tumors have be performed with micro-surgery and the surgical mortality was less than 1%. 200 intracranial aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations were resected. More than 200 children’s posterior skull fossa tumors were treated and the complete excision rate was up to 85%, surgical mortality was less than 0.5%.

The department of basic science possess 3600 square meters and ownes a series of advanced equipments, such as confocal microscopy, patch clamp system and denaturing high performance liquid chromatography etc. There are 2 postdoctorals, 3 doctors, several lab assistants and over 10 graduate students. At present, basic research mainly focused on epilepsy, pediatric neurology and synaptic plasticity. The leader of epilepsy group, Professor Wei-ping Liao, the director of the Institute, is the vice-president of China Association against Epilepsy. The group is developing methods for genetic diagnosis of epilepsy. A new mutation in SCN1A has been found recently and the functional studying showed it maybe related to seizure aggravation by AEDs. There is a group studying the role of voltage-gated potassium ion channel and Kv interaction protein (KChIP) in pathogenesis of epilepsy. Fragile-X syndrome is a common heritable form of mental retardation resulting from the abnormality of FMRP. Special characteristic for Chinese children with Fragile-X syndrome have been reported by the pediatric neurology group. The mechanism of abnormalities in dendritic spine developing and plasticity in Fragile-X syndrome is being studied by using FMR-1 knockout mouse. Researches about the effect of antagonist of mGluR-1 on the abnormal development of dendritic spine is ongoing now.

ION-GZMC has become an important neuroscience institute in China. By now, the institute has been granted 57 funds and projects by National Science Fund Committee, Guangdong Province Science Fund Committee, Guangdong Province Health Department, Guangdong Province Science and Technology Department, et al. More than 500 papers have been published in international or national journals or conferences. It does play an important role in medical education. Many text books has been published, such as “Audio-video textbook of Epilepsy”, “Neurological Inherited Disease”, “Diagnosis and Therapy for Thrombus Disease”, “Child Psychiatry”, “Clinical Practical Peadiatrics”.