Agenda: 9th Annual BRAIN Initiative Meeting

5:00 PM - 8:00 PM
BRAIN, Neuroscience, and Beyond: Building Our Early Career Community
Location: White Oak

For trainees and early career investigators to socialize and network with one another and BRAIN Initiative staff. This special event will include peer-mentor matching and information about BRAIN Initiative funding opportunities for all career stages and will take place in-person only. Registration closed for this session on May 22, you must have pre-registered for this session and the BRAIN Initiative Meeting to attend.

10:45 AM - 11:45 AM
Plenary: The Battle for Your Brain
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D
Nita A. Farahany, J.D., Ph.D.
Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law and Philosophy, Duke University

At the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence lies a wealth of opportunity for business, labor, individuals, and society at large. Yet along with progress comes a host of legal and ethical dilemmas. Professor Nita Farahany considers what our neurological information is worth, and the implications of of a world of greater brain transparency for self-determination, mental privacy, and freedom of thought.

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Cellular Atlasing and Analysis in Human and Non-human Primate Brain
Location: Grand Ballroom A-C

Defining the molecular underpinnings of the complex cellular architecture of the human and non-human primate brain is crucial to understand cognition, behavior, and disease. The BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) supported the generation of draft censuses of cellular diversity in human, macaque, and marmoset brain based on high-throughput single nucleus transcriptomics and epigenomics. This symposium describes the molecular underpinnings of brain-wide primate cell types, cortical variation across human individuals, and neuroethics of brain cell type atlasing. The session aims to contribute to discussions in BICAN of donor sampling and integrative analyses for the next generation of cellular atlases.

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

The Octopus Brain: Genomics, Connectomics, and Function
Location: Grand Ballroom D

Giant brains evolved only twice on this planet: in vertebrates and in cephalopods (octopus, squid, and cuttlefish). This symposium examines the neural diversity, circuit dynamics, and function of the octopus brain. Presentations will discuss the latest research on the genomic and developmental mechanisms underlying the massive size of the octopus brain, the connectome of its learning center, the molecular underpinnings of the neuronal diversity, organization and function of the visual system, and the control of eight autonomous arms. Understanding this other example of a complex brain will help establish the general principles that apply to all brains.

1:45 PM - 2:30 PM

Trainee Highlight Awards
Location: Grand Ballroom A-C

Trainee Highlight Awardee Finalists were selected by a programmatic review committee and confirmed by the meeting Program Committee. 30 total trainee awardees have the opportunity to present ~3 minute “flash” talks in addition to scientific posters outlining their specific contribution to a broader BRAIN Initiative project. Trainees might be scientists in high school, undergraduate or graduate programs, medical or other professional school, or postdoctoral fellows or residents. The trainees are available to network during Poster Session 3 on Tuesday, June 13 from 2:15 pm - 3:45 pm EDT and may be available during additional times – find them in the Poster Hall!
The 15 Trainee Highlight Awardees presenting in this session include:

Tanvi Butola, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Cellular and circuit principles governing cortico-hippocampal circuit in acute slices from resected human brain tissue (8000)
Chenggang Chen, Johns Hopkins University
Cortical patch and map of auditory space (8001)
Yu-Ting Cheng, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Ascending Circuit Mechanisms that Shape the Perception of Visceral Pain (8002)
Emmanuel Crespo, Central Michigan University
Activity dependent light emitters for imaging, mapping, and controlling activated neural circuits (8004)
Nhung Hoang, Vanderbilt University
Transcriptomic associations with individual variability in human brain organization (8008)
Sangsin Lee, Rice University
Engineered serum markers for noninvasive monitoring of gene expression in the brain (8010)
Kemper Ludlow, Cornell University
The first axillary steering muscles can drive roll maneuvers within a redundant system (8012)
Mora Ogando, University of California Berkeley
Experience orthogonalizes cortical codes by reconfiguring inhibitory microarchitecture (8016)
Kayla Peelman, Emory University / Georgia Institute of Technology
Thalamus dynamically adjusts visual perception to context (8019)
Mitchell Robinson, Massachusetts General Hospital
Development of a multi-channel, long-wavelength, interferometric diffuse correlation spectroscopy (LW-miDCS) instrument for mapping real time changes in cerebral blood flow (8022)
Somayeh Shahsavarani, Columbia University in the City of New York
A neural basis and behavioral correlates for resting-state dynamic functional connectivity (8024)
Elizabeth Sneddon, University of California, San Diego
Sex differences in cocaine-related behaviors in heterogenous stock rats (8025)
Behrad Soleimani, University of Maryland
Robust Functional Connectivity from MEG using Network Localized Granger Causality: Directional Connectivity Results in Physiological Frequency Bands (8026)
Muthumeenakshi Subramanian, Case Western Reserve University
Extracellular voltage clamp suppresses epileptic activity in mice hippocampus (8027)
Shuyuan Yang, Rice University
Expanded genetically encoded voltage indicator toolbox for deep, rapid, and prolonged voltage recordings in vivo (8029)

2:45 PM - 3:45 PM

Functional Manipulation of the CNS: Theory of the Mind Meets Clinical Intervention
Location: Grand Ballroom A-C

This symposium will bring together tool makers, end-users and clinicians for considering what the next generation of basic and translational neuroscience will look like. These technology is transforming circuit‐based neuroscience by enabling rapid genetic access to specific brain cell types, without the restrictions and risks of genome alteration. Moreover, by providing unprecedented access to primate brains, it is directly relevant to translational efforts in gene therapy.

2:45 PM - 3:45 PM

Human Neuroscience in the Wild
Location: Grand Ballroom D

The ultimate goal of neuroscience is to explain real-world behavior in terms of the activities of the brain and to translate these discoveries into therapeutic approaches that can help those suffering from neural disorders. I’ll share our recent work in which patients with implanted neural recording systems completed a navigation and episodic memory task around a college campus while medial temporal lobe (MTL) activity was recorded and synchronized with a variety of wearable sensors (wearable video cameras, eye tracking, motion tracking, GPS, physiology, etc.) to examine how human MTL activity is modulated by changes in real-world environmental contexts and experiences.

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Plenary Introduction
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D
Dr. Nora Volkow
Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse

Plenary: Psychiatric Neuromodulation: Pushing the Limits of Personalization
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D
Sameer Anil Sheth, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor, Baylor College of Medicine

When considering treatment options for medically refractory neurological conditions such as movement disorders or epilepsy, we routinely devise strategies tailored to individual patient symptoms. This personalization is greatly facilitated by a fundamental understanding of the neurophysiological basis of these disorders, well-established measures of symptoms and phenotypes, and increasingly well-characterized neural biomarkers of disease and treatment response. Similar individualization of therapy for psychiatric conditions, on the other hand, has been notoriously challenging. I will discuss recent efforts to change this balance by leveraging increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging methods, invasive electrophysiological approaches, and machine learning techniques. These novel approaches are beginning to fill in the critical gaps in our understanding of the neurophysiological basis of these disorders and the relationship between neural activity and symptom states. Our ability to truly personalize psychiatric neuromodulation will depend on continued development and generalizability of this fundamental work.

5:15 PM – 7:15 PM

A First Look at the Allen Brain Cell Atlas: Multimodal Visual Analysis at Whole-Brain Scale
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D

In this workshop, the Allen Brain Cell Atlas upcoming release will provide a demo, and the community will seek feedback on its features and potential. Discussion to include how Atlas can support the CUBIE knowledgebase grant and BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN)/BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) datasets. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and engage with the Atlas Development Team.

5:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Technology and Resource Dissemination: Best Practices and Lessons Learned
Location: Glen Echo

This panel discussion will focus on best practices and common challenges in dissemination, geared to investigators currently actively disseminating BRAIN technologies and resources (e.g. NIH BRAIN Initiative U24 awardees). Open to all users, small business grantees, and others interested in resource dissemination and will be followed by a networking session.

10:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Plenary Introduction
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D
Sandeep Robert Datta, MD, PhD

Plenary: Circuit Mechanisms for Flexible and Adaptive Behaviors
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D
Vanessa Ruta, Ph.D.
Professor, The Rockefeller University/HHMI

Animals display fantastic diversity in their behaviors, both within and across different species. My lab has been using the concise neural circuitry of Drosophila to elucidate how nervous systems are adapted over different timescales, through individual experience or evolutionary selection to give rise to flexible variations in behavior. By applying an interdisciplinary perspective, from the structure of sensory receptors to the algorithms of complex behaviors, we have begun to shed light on how behaviors can be modified at the level of molecular, synaptic, and circuit motifs.

Trainee Highlight Awards - Session 2

11:30 AM - 12:15 PM
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D

Trainee Highlight Awards

Jaewon Chung, Johns Hopkins University
Human Connectomes are Heritable (8003)
Rachel Crockett, Stanford University
Tracking down the nucleus basalis of Meynert for deep brain stimulation to treat cognitive-motor impairment in Parkinson’s disease (8005)
Elaida Dimwamwa, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dynamic corticothalamic modulation of the somatosensory thalamocortical circuit during wakefulness (8006)
Nisha Giridharan, Baylor College of Medicine
Low-frequency power in the ventral capsule/ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex: a neural biomarker of obsessive-compulsive symptom provocation (8007)
Fae Kronman, Penn State College of Medicine
A multimodal 3D developing mouse brain common coordinate framework for cell census mapping (8009)
Huazhang Li, UW Madison
Machine Learning Analyses to Predict Neuronal Electrophysiological Features by Gene Expression for Brain Diseases (8011)
Blake Madruga, University of California, Los Angeles
Development of open-source, high performance miniature multiphoton microscopy systems for freely behaving animals (8013)
Andrea Nam, University of Texas at Austin
Role of perisynaptic astroglia during synaptic plasticity of a network (8014)
Carina Oehrn, University of California, San Francisco
Real-life personalized adaptive deep brain stimulation improves motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (8015)
Kiran Pandey, New York University
The coupling between mRNA translation and autophagy is required for long-term memory formation (8017)
Emily Parrish-Mulliken, University of Connecticut
Rational design of embedding resins for electron microscopy using calculated and measured glass transition temperature. (8018)
Janeth Perez Garza, University of Connecticut
Visualization of RNA on Ultrathin Brain Tissue Sections (8020)
Julian Sergej Benedikt Ramirez, Child Mind Institute
Spatiotemporal signatures across awake and anesthetized states in the macaque with translational insights. (8021)
Elizabeth Sachse, University of Minnesota Graduate Program in Neuroscience
An Optogenetic Model of Mid-Striatal Electrical Deep Brain Stimulation to Improve Cognitive Flexibility (8023)
Yu Wu, Rice University
Ultraflexible Electrodes Reveal Dynamic Activity of Spinal Cord Neurons in Behaving Animals (8028)

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

Introduction to the NIH and BRAIN Ecosystem for Translation (RD)
Location: Forest Glen

This session includes an overview of NIH programs supporting the translation of technologies and success stories from investigators who have successfully transitioned their projects to NIH funding, followed by an overview of specific funding mechanisms provided by NIH Program Staff and a question-and-answer session.

Panel Speakers:

Dr. Philip Starr (MD-PhD)
University of California, San Francisco

Dr. John Viventi (PhD)
Duke University

Dr. Vanessa Tolosa (PhD)
META

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

The Theater of Thought Abridged Documentary Screening + Q & A
Location: White Flint Ampitheater

Werner Herzog sets his sights on yet another mysterious landscape - the human brain - for clues as to why a hunk of tissue can produce profound thoughts and feelings while considering the philosophical, ethical, and social implications of fast-advancing neural technology. Please join Dr. Rafael Yuste for an abridged screening of this documentary followed by time for Q&A.

3:45 PM – 4:45 PM

Sensing, Controlling and Integrating Brain Processes with Biological Light
Location: Grand Ballroom A-C

Bioluminescent Optogenetics takes advantage of molecules found in nature for sensing (photoreceptors) and emitting (luciferases) light, enabling a versatile platform for genetically targeted sensors, actuators, and integrators of neural activity. Five diverse speakers will cover the why and how of bioluminescent calcium and neurotransmitter sensors, their use in integrating neural activity with changes in membrane potential and transcription, transsynaptic communication through bioluminescence, and luciferins with improved brain access. Discussion will seek to illuminate emerging areas of research and the tools needed to embark upon them.

2023 Agenda