Agenda: 10th Annual BRAIN Initiative Conference

10:15 - 11:15 am

Plenary: Deconstructing the Serotonin System in the Mouse Brain
Location: Grand Ballroom A-D

Serotonin powerfully modulate physiology and behavior in health and disease. In the mammalian brain, serotonin neurons are clustered in the raphe nuclei in the brainstem, but their axons innervate the entire brain. Our previous studies suggested that serotonin neurons likely comprise parallel subsystems with distinct transcriptomic features, projection patterns, input biases, physiological response properties, and behavioral functions (Ren et al., 2018; 2019). Building on these findings, I will describe three unpublished stories on (1) the architecture of serotonin projectome in the entire mouse brain; (2) deconstructing the serotonin system via the receptor axis; (3) modulation of female social behaviors by projection-specific serotonin neurons.

Concurrent Symposia 1: High-density and High-resolution Neurophysiology to Reveal Local Microcircuits in the Human Brain
Location: Grand Ballroom A-C

Demonstration of the feasibility of high-density intracranial electrode technologies such as Neuropixels to record human brain activity has opened a new frontier for human neuroscience (Paulk et al. 2022; Chung et al. 2022). This session will highlight ongoing work on the kinds of questions that can uniquely be addressed using high-density and high-resolution neurophysiological approaches. In addition to speaker talks, a panel discussion will focus on how these approaches can meaningfully inform neuropathology and neuromodulation therapies, including questions surrounding neuroethics and access to the technology.

Concurrent Symposia 2: Imaging Outside-the-Toolbox: Novel Solutions for Large Scale and Deep-Tissue Imaging
Location: Grand Ballroom D

Current neuroimaging methods impose tradeoffs between imaging depth, volume interrogated, invasiveness, and spatiotemporal resolution. Despite the central importance of volumetric, cellular microscopy techniques like multiphoton imaging to our emerging toolbox, these remain limited to superficial volumes. These limitations are due both to the limitations of the imaging methods, and those of appropriate contrast agents (e.g., dyes, fluorescent proteins), especially in intact brains. To truly revolutionize imaging in scattering tissues requires the co-development of new classes of imaging technologies and new classes of chemical and genetic tools. The session will review cutting edge solutions with the capacity to noninvasively image cell-type-selective activity across large brain volumes in vivo. We will review a variety of recent developments in infrared calcium indicators using protein sensors and chemigenetic approaches, and developments in the ability to perform large-scale activity imaging using photo-switching, optoacoustics or direct ultrasound imaging. Together, these solutions present a new wave of outside-the-box possible paths towards large scale functional neuroimaging.

Concurrent Symposia 3: Music: Building "Bridges" in the Brain
Location: Grand Ballroom A-C

The goal of this BRAIN symposium is to advance research to elucidate neural circuits engaged in music-based interventions. Participants will gain: 1) increased understanding of the neural circuits underlying the impact of music on the brain through the connections between auditory pathways and other neural systems; 2) appreciation of the important role of incorporating cutting-edge neurobehavioral, viral tracing, microendoscopic calcium imaging, multielectrode recordings, psychoacoustic, and optogenetic technological approaches and methodologies to advance research on music and the brain; 3) understanding of the bidirectional nature of neural circuits involved in music-based therapeutic effects on a variety of brain and behavioral disorders, including hearing disorders, pain, motor, or cognitive dysfunction.

Concurrent Symposia 4: Advancing Participant Engagement in BCI Research: Who, Why, and How?
Location: Grand Ballroom D

While ethicists, researchers, and study participants have expressed the importance of participant engagement in brain computer interface studies, there is neither consensus nor widespread guidance on what engagement in these studies ought to encompass, why it should be done, and how to do it. Given that these studies (1) are only done with individuals with significant disabilities, requiring brain surgery and years of intensive involvement with no promise of clinical benefit, (2) offer unique opportunities to influence important aspects of device design in line with the values of people with disabilities, and (3) have inspired a rise of industry partners seeking to bring these neurotechnologies to market, now is a crucial time to advance guidance on participant engagement to maximize the benefits of technology for current and future participants.

Through sharing their own experiences with BCI research and engagement efforts, this panel will describe the current state of participant engagement, gaps in current practices and under appreciated opportunities for improved engagement, and the ethical foundations that should guide increased engagement efforts. Moderated by Dr. Ashley Feinsinger, experiences will be shared through the advocacy lens (Jennifer French), the neural engineering lens (Dr. Jennifer Collinger), the participant lens (Phil McKenzie), and the clinical researcher lens (Dr. Nader Pouratian).

Specialty Session: BRAIN and the Future of Computing: Emerging Perspectives on Embodied NeuroAI Research
Location: White Flint Amphitheater

This panel of prominent researchers from neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and neuromorphic engineering will highlight emerging questions in “NeuroAI” at the intersection of neuroscience, behavior, and AI. Do large generative AI models think, learn, or act in the same way as biological brains, and if so, how? Are bodies required for intelligent behavior? How can AI and neuroscience best work together? The brains of humans and other animals offer remarkable computational capabilities that may provide a blueprint for developing the next generation of brain-like and energy-efficient AI. Conversely, AI advances may shed light on how brains work, leading to new theories and data-driven models. The BRAIN Initiative research community is generating neural and behavioral data, at unprecedented scales, that may drive transformative advances in NeuroAI.

Moderator Tony Zador (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) will introduce NeuroAI and argue that the field needs to devise an embodied Turing test. Henry Yin (Duke University) will discuss implications from the basal ganglia for analog computing and neural control, reconsidering basic assumptions about brain and behavior. Kim Stachenfeld (Google DeepMind) will discuss training AI systems with brain-like capabilities in the use of deep learning for physical simulation using a graph neural network approach, and graph neural network approaches. Gina Adam (George Washington University) will describe advances in translating hippocampal mechanisms to neuromorphic computing designs and new neurotechnologies with biomedical applications. This session brings together key perspectives on brain-like computing and intelligent embodied behavior. Join us at the 10th Annual BRAIN Initiative Conference to learn how BRAIN and AI can move forward together.

Specialty Session: Bringing Your Neurotechnology to Life: Topics on Translation
Location: Brookside

Neuroscience discoveries are the groundwork of addressing conditions of the brain and central nervous system, but what can you do from there? This special session with take key updated topics about neurotech translation. Here we will highlight the topics of the NIH Blueprint supported the NeuroTech Course and offer a panel of experts to address and discuss opportunities for early stages of development. Specific topics include working with the regulatory agencies including the new FDA TAP program; funding strategies with grants and contracts; and academic-government-industry partnerships. Attend to learn more about these resources to further your neuroscience efforts and come with your questions to discuss with topic experts.

Specialty Session: Fostering Inspiration and Engagement through Outreach, Noggins and Art - IN-PERSON ONLY
Location: Glen Echo

Science needs investment, and engaging the public communicates discoveries and builds support for education and research. Integrating the arts in STEM (STEAM) fosters interdisciplinary engagement, and draws in more people not currently overrepresented in the academic study of neuroscience. Nonprofit NW Noggin (nwnoggin.org) organizes undergraduates and graduates to collaborate, build community networks and inspire people about neuroscience and art. We bring diverse students excited by research and their own study of the brain and behavior into public schools, correctional facilities, Congress, houseless youth centers, coffee shops and pubs to hear what people already know and what they’d like to know, and to see where our stories and discoveries from labs and classrooms intersect. We’ve talked with over 70,000 people since 2012! K-12 students and members of the public are inspired by interacting with our undergraduates and graduates, and discover new possibilities for future educational and career paths. Our outreach volunteers learn about community needs and questions, and become better at communicating science. Many of our projects and experiences involve emerging technologies, including 3D printing. In our BRAIN Conference session, we’ll have plenty of colorful 3D printed cerebrums to share, and we’ll build new cells from pipe cleaners that reflect the extraordinary diversity revealed by BRAIN Initiative supported technologies. Anyone interested in the power of art to excite, engage and invite a broader public into STEM will enjoy this experience, and come away with ideas to expand their own outreach efforts. Building excitement and awareness of discoveries, educational options and careers through arts-integrated neuroscience outreach trains new scientists to collaborate, engages more people, and increases awareness and support for community investment in both brain research and the arts.

Specialty Session: Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization (BBQS) - Laying the Foundation for a New Data and Knowledge Ecosystem
Location: White Oak

The NIH BRAIN Initiative Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization (BBQS) program seeks to develop new tools and approaches to enable a more comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the brain basis of behavior across species and environments. The development and validation of next-generation tools, methods, and analytic approaches to precisely quantify complex behaviors and combine them with simultaneous recordings of brain activity in a range of environments will generate vast amounts of multi-modal and high-dimensionality data. To transform these data into knowledge that can advance the field of brain health, a new ecosystem for data archives, data coordination, novel ontologies, data standards, AI-informed approaches, and neuroethical frameworks will need to be developed. Laying the foundation for this new data ecosystem for brain-behavior discovery will be aided through the development of a transdisciplinary consortium of researchers. This session represents the kick-off of the BBQS Consortium activities to build this foundation.

The NIH moderator, Dr. Holly Lisanby, will briefly overview the goals of BBQS and how the existing funding opportunities fit into the overall objectives of BBQS. Dr. Satrajit Ghosh, MPI of the DANDI data repository and of the BICAN knowledgebase will present a vision of a data and machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) ecosystem for BBQS. To enable multidisciplinary and team science research, there is a need to coordinate data flow and data sharing using data standards and ontologies, develop and enable ML/AI resources, and tackle ethical considerations around access, privacy, and benefits. Drawing on experience from other ongoing projects, the talk will highlight challenges and opportunities for data sharing, for computation and benchmarking using cutting-edge software tools and ML/AI models, and for consideration of ethics across such a large scale ecosystem as the BBQS. Dr. Ashley Feinsinger will discuss the neuroethical challenges and opportunities presented by the types of data expected to be generated by BBQS projects, which will capture person-specific information in a range of environments and settings. Dr. Maryam Shanechi will address broad engineering and mathematical approaches to BBQS data, including ML/AI and beyond.

Speaker presentations will be followed by an interactive panel discussion between the audience and the speakers and moderator to stimulate transdisciplinary collaborations and to help frame the structure and stakeholders of the BBQS Consortium.

The intended audience includes current and future BBQS investigators, current and future investigators conducting brain research that could benefit from the tools being developed and disseminated by BBQS, persons with lived experience with brain disorders who could benefit from the results of BBQS-supported and BBQS-related research, neuroethicists with interest and expertise in the types of person-specific data to be generated in BBQS research projects, industries producing current and future implantable and noninvasive technologies to capture brain activity and behavior in a range of environments and across species, information industries and data technology companies with interests in leveraging brain and behavior data for health applications, current and future participants in the human subjects studies supported by BBQS, and members of the general public with an interest in brain health advancements, especially for neurological, psychiatric, and substance use disorders, among others.

Concurrent Symposia 5: Building on BICCN: Alzheimer's Disease Multimodal Atlasing Projects (AD-MAPs)
Location: Grand Ballroom A-C

The BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) supported the generation of high-resolution cellular atlases to characterize the diversity of brain cell types across species, which is crucial in defining the molecular underpinnings of brain function in health and disease. This symposium will open with a pre-recorded welcome from Dr. Hodes and highlight current research in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

3:30 - 4:30 pm

Meet the Funders Networking Session - open to all attendees
Location: Grand Ballroom E-H

Networking opportunity for trainees and researchers to connect with agency and partner organizations’ staff to learn about funding opportunities. Meet and mingle with representatives from the following organizations in person or virtually using the Meet the Funders link on the left menu. Please note: The funders will not be able to respond to virtual inquiries during the in-person session.

Meet and mingle with representatives from the following organizations:

2024 Agenda