Department of Neurology

Inselspital Bern

The Department offers an integrated range of medical services and is the largest neurological clinic in Switzerland. Its specialist teams diagnose and treat people with diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system, neuromuscular transmission, and muscular system.

To the Inselspital website

Director 

Prof. Urs Fischer

Profile

Clinical, translational, basic, and bioengineering research

  • Topics and teams: sleep, stroke, epilepsy, neuroimmunology, neurorehabilitation, Parkinson/movement disorders, dementia/neurodegeneration, rare neurological diseases, headache/pain, biomarkers, neuropsychology/cognitive neurology.
  • Teaching at multiple levels: students of medicine and biomedicine, graduate and postgraduate students
  • Three postgraduate programs in the fields of Stroke, Sleep, and Brain Health. The MAS in Stroke Medicine continues to attract a highly international student body, with 35 students from 26 countries currently enrolled. Interest in this year’s (2026) cohort was particularly strong, with a total of 108 applications, from which 40 students representing 30 countries were selected. The CAS in Brain Health also demonstrates global engagement, with 37 students from 16 countries having successfully completed the program. For 2026, 49 applications were submitted from 19 different countries.
  • In spring 2025, the MAS in Sleep Medicine started for the fourth time with 20 students from 17 countries. The next program will begin in spring 2027.

External Partners

Universities and large hospitals in Switzerland and abroad, other national and international research institutions, industry

Grants

  • SNSF grants awarded in 2025: 231094, 202166, 10006422, 10007169, 234622, 10004443, 10005677, 10002053, 238259, 10005008.
  • SNSF running grants: 197009, 197709, 200668, 200800, 202166, 205524, 205156, 203339, 208177, 210834, 215721, 213615, 213495, 202166, 219444, 221163, 218604, 10000521, 10003453, 10003589, 10002666, 10003515, 192755, 212466, 221732, 10000884, 10003222, 231094, 202166, 10006422, 189077, 198783, 205806, 209510, 213595, 220118, 238259.
  • SNSF running project partnerships: 204977, 220431, 205812, 220431, 10002053, 10005008.
  • Other grants: Innosuisse (two running grants Flagship PFFS-21-64; 2155009976, Flagship 123.653 FS-SBM), Bangerter-Rhyner Foundation, Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, Gesundheitsförderung Schweiz, Schweizerische MS Gesellschaft, Parkinson Schweiz, Helmut Horten Foundation, Baasch Medicus Foundation, SF Grant University of Bern.

Highlights 2025

Locations of ICH are displayed according to adjacent vs remote ICH.

Location and Timing of Recurrent, Nontraumatic Intracerebral Hemorrhage

The spatial and temporal distributions of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) recurrence are largely unknown. In this multi-cohort collaboration involving 733 patients with 1616 ICH events from 14 European cohorts, 46.4% of patients had recurrent ICH located adjacent to a previous ICH (adjICH), and features of cerebral amyloid angiopathy were associated with adjICH. Time to recurrence was shorter in patients with adjICH compared with patients who had recurrent ICH remote to a previous ICH. This study found that early recurrence and features of cerebral amyloid angiopathy were associated with adjICH. Spatial and temporal clustering findings suggest that regional tissue-based factors may play a role.

Goeldlin et al., JAMA Neurol. 2025

Local CMT oscillations predict ANREMs-to-WAKE.

A role for the thalamus in danger evoked awakening during sleep

Sleep involves a relative disconnection from the environment, yet sensory stimuli can still trigger awakenings. Here, we show that neutral auditory stimuli evoke responses across parallel auditory and non-auditory pathways, and that CMT activity is the most discriminant hub for auditory-evoked sleep-to-wake transitions. Prior associative learning with danger increased awakening upon CS+ exposure during NREM sleep, and these transitions were blocked by optogenetic silencing of CMT neurons. Altogether, these results suggest a central role of CMT neurons in residual processing of behaviorally relevant information during sleep.

Boccalaro et al., Nat Commun. 2025

Extension Phase Scheme

Disease-Modifying, Neuroprotective Effect of N-Acetyl-l-Leucine in Adult and Pediatric Patients With Niemann-Pick Disease Type C

N-acetyl-L-leucine (NALL) has been established to improve the neurologic manifestations of Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) after 12 weeks, and the extension phase evaluated long-term effects after 12 and 18 months. In 53 patients, the mean change from baseline on the 5-domain NPC-CSS showed markedly reduced disease progression with NALL compared with the expected annual trajectory from natural history studies, with consistent results across the 15-domain and 4-domain NPC-CSSs and the SARA. NALL was well tolerated, with no treatment-related adverse events. Treatment with NALL was associated with a significant reduction in NPC disease progression, demonstrating a disease-modifying, neuroprotective effect.

Patterson et al., Neurology. 2025

Asleep/awake LFP power difference and effects of physical activity and heart rate

Finely Tuned γ Tracks Medication Cycles in Parkinson's Disease: An Ambulatory Brain-Sense Study

Novel commercial brain-sense neurostimulators enable contextualization of brain activity with symptom and medication states in real-life ambulatory settings in Parkinson's disease (PD). We systematically compared the ambulatory neurophysiological dynamics and clinical properties of three candidate biomarkers, low-frequency, beta (β), and finely tuned γ (FTG) activity, in 14 PD patients with Medtronic Percept PC over up to two 4-week multimodal recording periods. FTG reliably indexed off to on medication states in ambulatory settings, correlated with dyskinesia measures, and indicated on-medication states regardless of dyskinesia or artifacts, with circadian power shifts also observed. This work highlights the utility of FTG as a primary and reliable indicator of medication states for adaptive DBS.

Colombo et al., Mov Disord. 2025

A cluster-based model of fatigue.

Fatigue: a common but poorly understood symptom in neurological and non-neurological diseases

Fatigue is a severely disabling symptom that can substantially impair quality of life, yet different individual and disease-related variables interact to generate this complex and clinically heterogeneous symptom. We currently lack a common understanding and definition of fatigue, impeding professional exchange regarding diagnosis and pathophysiology. To aid development of a common language, we propose a taxonomy of neurogenic, myogenic and systemic clusters, each comprising the same five concepts and their phenotypic expression. Understanding the interplay of multifactorial mechanisms, including comorbidities, is essential for diagnosis and targeted interventions, and large research consortia with longitudinal, multidimensional studies are required to address current methodological shortcomings and further explore this burdensome symptom.

Penner et al., Nat Rev Neurol. 2025