SRCA International Symposium 2021 and COVID-19

Dear SRCA members, colleagues and friends.

In 2020 we had to postpone the physical SRCA Symposium scheduled in Pilsen, Chech Republic due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the pandemic situation is different in every country but in general we are going in the right direction. But not quickly enough to organise the 2021 edition of the SRCA Symposium in a physical way. In practice this means that the 11th edition of the International Symposium of the Society for Research on the Cerebellum and Ataxias on the 18 and 19 June 2021 will be a complete Virtual Meeting.

The virtual symposium will run over 2 days and consist of live presentations followed by live discussions, including the F. Rossi Lecture. These will be joined by pre-recorded oral contributions that will be available on the website. To upgrade the poster section, we will introduce the poster-on-demand sessions. In these sessions the pre-recorded presentations of the poster authors' contribution will be available as video-on-demand on the website together with the abstract related to the poster. That way all posters will be available before, during and after the symposium and will be full presentations.

We wish you, your families, and your scientific families health and safety during this challenging time, and we look forward to seeing you when we reconvene hopefully at SRCA 2021.

The SRCA Executive Committee, and Local Organizing Committee

Obituary Dr. Masao Ito

Dr. Masao Ito, professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo and director of the Riken Brain Science Institute, passed away on December 18, 2018. He was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1928, Masao Ito received his MD (1953) and Ph.D. (1959) from The University of Tokyo.

He contributed greatly for cerebellar research. He discovered the characteristic synaptic plasticity, long-term depression (LTD), in the Purkinje cells. Following this finding, he developed a theory that the cerebellum is required not only for motor learning, but also for memory in thought.

We are deeply saddened by the loss of our esteemed mentor and celebrated, prominent cerebellar researcher with the greatest achievements. We express our deepest condolences.