Helsingin Ja Uudenmaan Sairaanhoitopiirin Kuntayhtyma (HUS)
Stenbackinkatu 9
00029 Helsinki

Finland
 
 www.hus.fi

Teamleader

Dr. Sampsa Vanhatalo Head of Children’s Neurophysiology, Senior Lecturer in Neurobiology  Phone: +358 50 528 6119  Fax: +358 10 296 0116  Contact

Project Staff

Dr. Marjo Metsäranta Neonatologist  Phone: +358 50 427 2487  Contact

Dr. Tuula Lönnqvist Pediatric neurologist  Phone: +358 504 272 465  Fax: +358 947 180 416  Contact

Prof. Kai Kaila Experimental work, neurobiology consultant  Phone: +358 9 1911  Contact

Institute Presentation

The Hospital for Children and Adolescents (HCA) in Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH/HUS) is a leading research and clinical center of pediatrics in Finland, and one of the biggest in Scandinavia. HCA has an international reputation in the areas of neonatal neurophysiology, early preterm care, long-term neurodevelopmental follow-ups, diagnostic and surgical epileptology for children, neonatal open heart surgeries, organ transplantation, and immunology. Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in HCA is a tertiary level centre serving a population base of 2 million inhabitants with over 15 000 births annually.

The Children's Neurophysiology Unit in HCA was one of the pioneering institutions that began to use video-EEG diagnostics for neonatal seizures in 1990s. During the past 5+ years this unit has taken a pioneering position in developing several aspects of neonatal neurophysiology. Most importantly, this centre has brought into clinical practice a recording technique called Full-band EEG (FbEEG), discovered the link between early preterm EEG activity and its molecular mechanisms, built the first physiologically based framework for EEG and evoked potential analysis in neonates, developed a series of now commercially available and clinically applicable EEG caps for preterm and fullterm babies, as well as developed advanced mathematical tools for neonatal EEG analysis.

HCA has a strong collaboration with the Neuroscience Centre, University of Helsinki, which is among the leading centers in neurobiological research in Europe, with several larger research programs dedicated to developmental neurobiology and disease mechanisms. The laboratory of Prof. Kaila is a frontier centre in the fields of developmental neurobiology, with a focus on the basic mechanisms of early network activity, neonatal seizures, GABAergic transmission and neuronal ion regulation.