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February 4, 2026

AAN members have long turned to AAN Sections to share experiences, insights, concerns, and perspectives with others in their area of interest. These exclusive, free member-led groups represent a broad range of neurological subspecialties and interests. While section members can engage face-to-face at the AAN Annual Meeting each spring, they engage year-round in over 10,000 discussion threads through —the official online community platform for AAN members. 

New Synapse features

The Synapse AAN member community platform and mobile app recently received a significant upgrade that offers an intuitive, clean, and streamlined design and navigation functionality; a social-media style activity feed; easy-to-use discussion forums and collaborative libraries; and a new, more robust connected mobile app. 

Get started by logging in to Synapse with your AAN member ID. Choose daily or weekly email digests to stay updated on community discussions. For real-time notifications, or to follow the conversation wherever you are, download the new Synapse mobile app available on the and  

Note that access to Synapse is restricted to active, current AAN members. If you’re not a member, or your membership has expired, join or renew today! 

AAN members share their perspectives

Select AAN section members and Synapse power users share what they appreciate most about the community platform.

ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉú. Community. Networking.
AAN member Lauren Bojarski, DO, belongs to eight sections. She shared how these groups, along with other Synapse AAN member communities, have helped her throughout her career:

“So many opportunities have presented themselves through Synapse! When I was a resident, I was a part of the Consortium of Neurology Residents and Fellows, which helped remind me of important dates for applications, leadership positions, and helped me network with others at the Annual Meeting. Even now as an attending it has been so helpful: there was a post about a year ago where someone had reached out on Synapse to see if any speakers were available to talk for their Grand Rounds. There were many responses to that post where we were able to give her a wide variety of topics and provide education to that team that would otherwise not have had that opportunity. Synapse has been incredibly helpful for me to enable worldwide conversations within my subspecialty to exchange ideas and information that couldn't have happened without this community. We have exchanged information on clinical trials, talked about webinars that would be of interest, exchanged information about leadership opportunities, and have even networked to meet up at the Annual Meeting.” 

Global collaboration
Fabricio Ferreira de Oliveira, MD, BBA, MSc, PhD, FAAN, from São Paulo, Brazil, shared how Synapse has helped him engage with a global community of neurology professionals.

“I am currently a member of sixteen Synapse communities. Each of them has its own reason to stand out, and even though I am a behavioral neurologist, I also deal with patients who have other diagnoses, and benefit from joining communities that are not specifically related to what I do. A few years ago, one of the chairs of the Neuroepidemiology Section Community invited all members of that Synapse Community to collaborate on a review article. Nine neurologists collaborated in the end: four from the United States, three from Italy, one from Malaysia, and myself from Brazil. It was a very nice collaboration, and we published the article in 2023.”