Audrey FanOHBM Women Faculty Launch at 2023 Annual Meeting in Monreal Lead reviewer: Lavinia Uscatescu
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Naomi GaggiScientific writing workshop by Bradley Voytek, hosted by the SP-SIG On April 27th, 2023, OHBM’s Student–Postdoc Special Interest Group hosted a workshop on best practices in scientific writing with Dr. Bradley Voytek. Dr. Voytek is a Professor in the Department of Cognitive Science, the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, and the Neurosciences Graduate Program at UC San Diego. He is a strong advocate for science communication and outreach, and he has engaged with audiences as diverse as Scientific American, National Public Radio, and San Diego Comic-Con. The event covered a range of topics related to scientific writing, the different forms of scientific outreach, and ways to frame our scientific work for communicating with the public. Overall, there were three main takeaways from his talk: 1) practice communicating your science and engaging different audiences, 2) embrace your journey, and 3) find your niche, have fun with your work, and dive right in!  Communications Committee Lay Media teamInvitation to public events on brain imaging science (English and French language) On Tuesday, July 18, local neuroscientists from Quebec universities will speak about the fascinating research on brain imaging. Talks will be delivered in English and French, and are free to the general public. More details are provided below. You are invited to attend and to share this invitation with anyone who might be interested in this event. Place: Grande Bibliothèque (475 Boul. de Maisonneuve E, Montréal, at Berri-UQAM metro station) Date: Tuesday July 18, 2023 Time (talks in French): 6:00 pm (doors open at 5:30 pm) Time (talks in English): 8:00 pm (doors open at 7:30 pm) Tickets: free, but limited numbers available! Register quickly using the link below. Register for French lectures: imagerieducerveau.eventbrite.ca Register for English lectures: brainimaging.eventbrite.ca Talks are aimed at the general public, and for each language session, there will be three talks of around 20 minutes, along with a Q&A session after. Talks in English will be given by: Dr. Alan Evans (A hitch-hiker's guide to mapping the brain) Dr. Emily Coffey (Altering sleep and memory with sound) Dr. Robert Zatorre (The neuroscience of music and why we love it) Talks in French will be given by: Dr. Sylvain Baillet (Tempête dans la boîte crânienne !) Dr. Delphine Raucher-Chéné (Apports de la neuroimagerie en psychiatrie : en quoi étudier le cerveau nous aide à mieux comprendre les problèmes de santé mentale ?) Dr. Anne Gallagher (Toute la lumière sur le développement du cerveau) Invitation à un événement publique sur la science de l'imagerie du cerveau.
Le mardi 18 juillet, des neuroscientifiques d'universités québécoises présenteront les recherches liées au fascinant domaine de l'imagerie du cerveau. Les conférences seront données en anglais et en français, et sont gratuites pour le grand public. Plus de détails sont fournis ci-dessous et dans les affiches ci-jointes. Vous êtes invités à y assister et à partager cette invitation avec toute personne susceptible d'être intéressée par cet événement. Place : Grande Bibliothèque (475 Boul. de Maisonneuve E, Montréal, à la station de métro Berri-UQAM) Date de l'événement : mardi 18 juillet 2023 Heure (conférences en français) : 18h00 (ouverture des portes à 17h30) Heure (conférences en anglais) : 20h00 (ouverture des portes à 19h30) Billets : gratuits, mais en nombre limité ! Enregistrez-vous rapidement en utilisant le site ci-dessous. Billets pour les conférences en français : imagerieducerveau.eventbrite.ca Billets pour les conférences en anglais : brainimaging.eventbrite.ca Les conférences s'adressent au grand public et chaque session linguistique comprendra trois conférences d'environ 20 minutes, suivies d'une séance de questions-réponses. Les conférences en français seront données par : Dr. Sylvain Baillet ( Tempête dans la boîte crânienne ! ) Dre. Delphine Raucher-Chéné ( Apports de la neuroimagerie en psychiatrie : en quoi étudier le cerveau nous aide à mieux comprendre les problèmes de santé mentale ? ) Dre. Anne Gallagher ( Toute la lumière sur le développement du cerveau ) Les conférences en anglais seront données par : Dr. Alan Evans ( A hitch-hiker's guide to mapping the brain ) Dre. Emily Coffey ( Altering sleep and memory with sound ) Dr. Robert Zatorre ( The neuroscience of music and why we love it ) OHBM's many committees and Special Interest GroupsCommunity-led events at #OHBM2023 The 2023 OHBM Annual Meeting is fast approaching! In addition to the fantastic scientific content organized by the Program Committee, many other committees and special interest groups (SIGs) host their own programs. At last year’s Annual Meeting in Glasgow, committees and SIGs hosted events on inclusivity, mentorship, art, and much more. Read on to learn about upcoming committee and SIG events at OHBM 2023! And don't forget to check out our latest Neuroscience podcast episode, where Peter Bandettini and Alfie Wearn talk about these events! You can find it at your favorite podcast service here and on YouTube here.  Rahul Gaurav & Naomi L. GaggiLooking at the past and future of functional connectivity  Dr. Bharat B. Biswal is a distinguished professor in Biomedical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he serves as director for the Center for Brain Imaging and leads the Brain Connectivity Lab. He received his doctorate in biophysics from the Medical College of Wisconsin, following a masters from Michigan Technical University and a bachelors of science in electrical engineering from Utkal University in India.
Dr. Biswal is well-known for his seminal work in functional connectivity and continues his research in brain connectivity and signal processing using MRI. He is also a familiar guest on the NeuroSalience Podcast, having been featured in Season 3, Episode 5 in conversation with his former labmate Dr. Peter Bandettini. In this interview, Rahul Gaurav and Naomi L. Gaggi talked with Dr. Biswal as a keynote speaker for the upcoming 2023 Organization for Human Brain Mapping Conference in Montreal, Canada. They cover his academic journey, his research, and the potential future of resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Lavinia Uscătescu, with editing by Xinhui LiCapturing the complex activity of the social brain  Dr. Xujun Duan is a professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China. She obtained her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, with Dr. Vinod Menon as one of her supervisors and mentors. She has extensive research expertise with multimodal and computational neuroimaging methods, which she employs to study the social brain of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
In her 2023 OHBM keynote address, she will highlight some of her recent results developing extensive neuroimaging and neurostimulation protocols in a population of autistic children. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), she stimulated structures of the social brain (i.e. the parts of the brain responsible for processing information related to social interactions and cues) and followed this up with both neuroimaging and clinical assessments. In this interview, Dr. Xujun Duan discusses how she overcame the challenges of implementing a research protocol that would adequately capture the complex activity of the social brain, as well as the rewarding moments she enjoyed during this process. Additionally, she offers career advice for early stage researchers who plan on pursuing an academic path. Elisa Guma and Kevin SitekUsing a variety of methods to map circuits in the primate brain  Takafumi Minamimoto is team leader of the Neural Systems and Circuits Research Group and deputy director of the Department of Functional Brain Imaging at the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology in Chiba, Japan. His research focuses on the interaction between motivation, emotion, and memory in the brain of non-human primates.
To address these questions, Dr. Minamimoto uses a range of methods including neuroimaging with functional MRI and PET as well as chemogenetic techniques such as Designer Receptors Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs), which are a class of proteins that allow scientists to control neural activity in awake, freely moving animals. In this interview, Elisa Guma and Kevin Sitek talked with Dr. Minamimoto about his research program, the path he took to get there, and what we can expect from his 2023 Keynote address. Read on to learn more! Alfie Wearn and Faruk GulbanExploring quantitative MRI and 'in vivo histology'  Dr. Aviv Mezer is an Associate Professor at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Dr. Mezer’s lab is focused on mapping human brain structures during normal development and aging. In addition, it is focused on developing new approaches to characterize the structural changes associated with neurological disorders. Mezer’s main research tool is in vivo quantitative magnetic resonance imaging – qMRI. The Mezer lab is developing tools to biophysically explain the brain’s MRI signals at different levels and resolutions: from molecular local sources through cellular organization to the mapping of networks across the entire brain. In this interview, we discuss the field of qMRI more broadly, touching upon the present and future interpretations of "in vivo histology." We also discuss Dr Mezer’s approach to mentorship, as well as the skills that would benefit future researchers in this field. At OHBM 2023, Dr. Mezer will show us how combining multiple quantitative MRI measures can provide additional biological information about tissue composition and brain health. You can find the video interview here and listen to the audio-only podcast version here (or on your podcast app of choice). Johanna Bayer and LAVINIA CARMEN USCATESCUDiscussing deep brain stimulation and brain connectivity with Keynote presenter Andreas Horn  Dr. Andreas Horn is a clinician-scientist with training in neuroimaging, movement disorders, and both invasive and noninvasive brain stimulation. He is the group leader of the transatlantic Network Stimulation Laboratory at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital Boston and Charité – University Medicine Berlin. Dr. Horn’s research focuses on the development and improvement of methods to identify brain stimulation sites for studying network interactions and neuromodulation in the human brain. He is also the host of the podcast Stimulating Brains, focusing on brain stimulation.
In this interview with Dr. Horn, we explore how deep brain stimulation can be used to better understand the human connectome, and how this work can be leveraged to improve patients’ lives. “In contrast to many other neuroimaging domains, there is a more or less direct translation [from Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)] to clinical practice,” says Dr. Horn. For example, networks identified via DBS can be targeted with noninvasive stimulation methods such as multifocal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to improve conditions of patients with movement disorders like Parkinson's disease. Dr. Horn also provides insight into ongoing discussions in the field on whether structural or functional measures provide better predictions for DBS outcomes. He explains why his lab has gradually shifted away from using patient-specific connectivity data to precise normative connectomes for determining which brain networks should be modulated for maximal effects. In his keynote at OHBM 2023, Dr. Horn will give us a tour of his findings from years of work studying the effects of deep brain stimulation on the connectome across different disorders, ranging across neurological, neuropsychiatric, and psychiatric diseases. He will illustrate how his findings can be transferred across disorders to inform one another as well as how they can be further used to study neurocognitive effects and behaviors such as risk-taking and impulsivity. You can find the video interview here and listen to the audio-only podcast version here (or on your podcast app of choice). Lavinia Carmen Uscatescu and Sin KimThe third entry in our 2023 Keynote Presenter series  Dr. Emma Robinson is a Senior Lecturer (Assoc. Professor) at King’s College London. Her development of the Multimodal Surface Matching (MSM) software for cortical surface registration has been instrumental to the development of the Human Connectome Project’s multimodal parcellation of the human cortex. She is currently developing interpretable machine learning models for personalized prediction of disease progression.
In this interview, Dr. Robinson describes the advantages of interpretable machine learning models and the methodological challenges she faced during the development of this framework. Her approach to identifying disease-related changes in individual brain scans attempts to circumvent two limitations of traditional approaches: (1) the over-reliance on population averages; and (2) the opacity of “black-box” machine learning algorithms such as deep neural networks. However, her extensive experience working on the Human Connectome Project led her to realize that traditional image registration methods may not be sufficient for individualized predictions. In addition, Dr. Robinson shared how her relationship with her mentors shaped the trajectory of her current career. Her mentors not only guided her on the application of computational methods to neuroscience but also encouraged her to develop her own methods. At OHBM 2023, Dr. Robinson will present how her work contributes to improved personalized predictions of cortical features in patient populations and how interpretable machine learning approaches can enhance precision. You can find the video interview here and listen to the audio-only podcast version here (or on your podcast app of choice). Elisa Guma and Simon SteinkampContinuing our OHBM2023 keynote interview series  Dr. Emily Jacobs is an Associate Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences and the director of the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Health Initiative at University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, and her BA in Neuroscience from Smith College. Prior to UCSB, she was an instructor at Harvard Medical School and at the Department of Medicine/Division of Women’s Health at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
In this interview, we discuss the pioneering work of Dr. Jacobs and her group in leveraging brain imaging, computation, and endocrine approaches to deepen our understanding of the influence of sex hormones on the central nervous system across spatial and temporal scales. Her group uses structural and functional neuroimaging methods to explore how the brain changes in response to endogenous hormonal changes, such as across the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or menopause, as well as to exogenous hormones via oral hormonal contraceptives. Through the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Health Initiative, Dr. Jacobs and her group are working towards creating a population-level brain imaging dataset to advance our understanding of women’s brain health across the lifespan. Dr. Jacobs also shares her journey into neuroscience research, her thoughts on how science can inform public policy, and talks about her groups’ efforts to improve girls’ representation in STEM by partnering with K-12 groups. This work was featured in the book STEMinists: The Lifework of 12 Women Scientists and Engineers. At OHBM 2023, Dr. Jacobs will highlight the power of sex steroid hormones and the role that they play in shaping the brain over multiple timescales, drawing attention to some of the reasons why it has taken the field so long to focus on women’s brain health. You can find the video interview here and listen to the audio-only podcast version here (or on your podcast app of choice). What to Expect from the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee at The 2023 OHBM Annual Meeting6/13/2023 Alexander Barnett, Christienne Damatac, Eduardo A. Garza-Villarreal, Julia Kam, Lucina Uddin, and Maryam ZiaeiOn behalf of the OHBM Diversity & Inclusivity Committee At this year’s OHBM meeting in Montreal, cutting-edge technology and a commitment to diversity and inclusivity will converge in an array of events curated by the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee (DIC). We will showcase the transformative power of thoughtful methodology in enhancing accessibility to and fostering a sense of belonging in neuroscience and neuroimaging.
First, the 5th annual DIC symposium will feature a panel of experts on groundbreaking technological solutions for supporting our diverse global community. From revolutionizing accessibility for individuals with visual and auditory impairments to promoting inclusivity in neuroimaging studies, this symposium promises to inspire us to actively improve our own research to be more inclusive. Next, at the Multilingual Kids Review, we will engage young reviewers from diverse backgrounds in critically assessing a scientific presentation. Finally, the Diversity & Inclusivity Roundtable will focus on advancing diversity across multiple dimensions, examining strategies for organizing diverse symposia, educational courses, and brain hackathons. We hope you will join us as we explore how technology, diversity, and inclusivity intersect to shape the future of neuroscience and neuroimaging. Together, we can work towards creating a welcoming environment for OHBM’s diverse and international membership. Xinhui Li and Kevin SitekKicking off the 2023 Keynote Lecture Series
By Charlotte Rae, Nikhil Bhagwat, Peer Herholz, Irene Faiman, and Niall DuncanFROM THE SUSTAINABILITY AND ENVIRONMENT ACTION SIG (SEA-SIG) As we prepare for the 2023 annual meeting in Montreal, many of us have started looking into travel arrangements, accommodation, and generally getting ready for the annual meeting. From booking travel to planning your time in Montreal, there are lots of ways that you can make your 2023 meeting experience more sustainable. Here we highlight some often overlooked tips, from getting around the city to poster printing and more
Yohan YeeA look back before moving forward to 2023 keynote interviews  Prof Janaina [Jana-eena] Mourao-Miranda leads the Machine Learning and Neuroimaging Lab within the Centre for Medical Image Computing (CMIC) at the Department of Computer Science, University College London (UCL), where she applies pattern recognition and machine learning techniques to neuroimaging data. A major theme within Prof Mourao-Miranda’s research is uncovering the relationship between brain and behaviour.
At OHBM 2022, Prof Mourao-Miranda gave a keynote lecture on machine learning in neuroimaging and psychiatry. You can find a recording of Prof Mourao-Miranda’s talk here. Below is an edited transcript of an interview conducted with Prof Mourao-Miranda on June 17, 2022. Jean ChenOn behalf of the Women in OHBM Special Interest Group Over half of OHBM conference attendees are women scientists (according to data from OHBM Executive Staff), and many of them continue to face gender-specific barriers in their work as human brain mappers. To enable members to learn from one another and mutually support career success, we created the Women in OHBM Special Interest Group (SIG), officially recognized as of March 2023. The product of a 2-year informal consultation process, the Women in OHBM SIG was motivated by a group of mid- and early-career OHBM women scientists with shared interests and challenges around gender equity in terms of scientific impact, career development and work-life balance, among other topics. The SIG aims to provide a community for OHBM women to network, promote mutual career development and facilitate scientific exchange amongst women scientists.  2023 inaugural leadership of the Women in OHBM Special Interest Group. Simon SteinkampLooking at OHBM membership data and a new membership tier OHBM transitioned to a scientific society in 2018 with the goal of delivering year-round engagement for the society’s members rather than being solely about the annual meeting. However, if one looks at the raw membership numbers over the last 17 years, the main perceived membership benefit remains connected to the annual meeting. In particular, yearly membership numbers fluctuate with meeting location, with highest membership numbers from the same geographic region. Unfortunately, this means that the society-based aspects of OHBM and many of the benefits of being an OHBM member have been largely overlooked. Thus, OHBM leadership is introducing a new MEMBERSHIP+ initiative to create a greater engagement of members on top of the annual meeting, strengthening OHBM as a society.  Fig. 1: OHBM membership data per year per continent. Bars in orange indicate if the Annual Meeting took place on the same continent, the virtual conferences are shaded in gray. Note different y-axis ranges for each plot. Numbers for North America include Central America and the Caribbean. Alfie WearnOn behalf of the OHBM Communications Committee Podcast Team
Naomi L. Gaggi
Beth Slater, with support from the OHBM Executive Office  Happy New Year and welcome to 2023, the year that OHBM will travel to Montréal for the 29th Annual Meeting. This meeting will be primarily held in person—but in a change from previous years, all members of OHBM can upload approved content and automatically have access to Annual Meeting content in a virtual space, regardless of registration status. In previous years, presenters were required to register for the Annual Meeting prior to uploading their content. New this year, presenters who are unable to participate in person may upload content simply by being a member of OHBM. This shift will reduce the financial burden for individuals who cannot travel to Montréal. Membership can be renewed here at any time.
Xinhui Li, Lena Oestreich, Aman Badhwar, Sridar Narayanan, Gladys Heng, Robin GutzenOn behalf of the OHBM Brain-Art Special Interest Group
OHBM Blog TeamHappy holidays! Well, it’s here—the end of 2022. With OHBM’s first in-person annual meeting since before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2022 shaped up to be a busy year for the OHBM Communications Committee! We gathered up the experiences and thoughts of this year’s OHBM blog contributors to hear how everyone’s doing and what they’re looking forward to in 2023. (For a blast from the past, here are the 2021, 2020, and 2019 posts.)  Kevin Sitek, Blog team lead and Committee chair-elect
https://sitek.github.io/ I am very thankful that 2022 brought the return of mostly normal activities for me, particularly international travel and an in-person OHBM annual meeting! It was amazing seeing so many old friends and collaborators (and meeting plenty of new ones) in Glasgow. I was also able to visit a few other cities before and after the conference, which scratched a two-plus-year travel itch. Within the Communications Committee, I shifted to more behind-the-scenes activities in 2022, but not before flipping the microphone on the podcast host and interviewing Peter Bandettini on the Neurosalience podcast. As blog team lead, I know there’s a ton of great content coming in the next year. Thanks for reading and listening along with us, and we hope to see you in 2023! Alfie Wearn
OHBM Diversity and Inclusivity CommitteeEvery year the OHBM Program Committee takes on the challenging task of creating content for the annual meeting that appeals to the multifaceted, global OHBM community. One of the top priorities for the committee is to ensure diversity of presenters at the meeting. However, it may be unclear how to achieve this goal.
Currently, the submission guidelines for symposia and educational courses state that submissions should provide a “statement on presenter diversity.” We hope to provide a discussion of what the statement of presenter diversity means and how organizers can ensure that a symposium submission meets this requirement. The Diversity and Inclusivity Committee has some ideas that we hope will move this discussion forward and provide concrete guidelines. Alfie Wearn(new) Podcast team lead
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