Two Swedish scholars delivered lectures on cooperative road freight transport and the neuropeptide galanin system in depression disorder respectively as part of the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Distinguished Lecture Series.

They were Professor Karl H. Johansson, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, KTH Royal Institute of Technology; and Professor Tomas H?kfelt, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. 

In his talk titled “Cooperative Road Freight Transport: Opportunities and Challenges in Networked Control” on 12 March, Professor Johansson said platooning trucks travelling close together could save more than 10% on their fuel consumption due to reduced air drag. 

 

The IEEE Fellow said a system architecture utilising vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication enables robust and safe control of individual trucks as well as optimised vehicle fleet collaborations and new market opportunities.

On 21 March, Professor H?kfelt delivered a lecture titled “Derangment of the Neuropeptide Galanin System in Major Depression Disorder: New Treatment Opportunities?” 

He said studies on depression disorder show the following:

• the galanin receptors are partly different between rodents and humans;
• the levels of the transcripts for galanin and GalR1 and -R3 are different in normal and depressed brains; and
• heavily stress-exposed subjects have mutations in the genes for galanin and all three receptors, GaIR1-3.

Professor H?kfelt is a Senior Fellow of CityU IAS. He concluded that a GalR3, perhaps also a GalR1, antagonist could have antidepressant activity.