From February 22-25, 2022, the 6th HBP Student Conference on Interdisciplinary Brain Research will provide an exciting open forum for collaboration among early-career researchers engaged in brain and brain-related research Did. 115 young scientists from 26 countries participated in the 2nd virtual edition of his HBP student conference and participated in various scientific and social programs. With 79% of attendees coming from outside his HBP, #HBPSC2022 proved to be a truly open and inclusive encounter and a key moment for young researchers to come together and exchange new ideas .
Insightful keynotes covering HBP research areas
The #HBPSC2022 Program Committee, composed entirely of young HBP researchers, was able to put together an exciting student-to-student program schedule.
Six insightful keynotes spanning HBP research areas: Stephen Rawries (University of Liege) kicked off the conference with an inspiring talk about his research on the effects of meditation on the body, sharing common ground with the participants. I shared a meditation exercise. Svenja Caspers (Forschungszentrum Jülich) provides insights into her work for understanding inter-individual variability in brain structure, function and connectivity, and Sacha van Albada (Forschungszentrum Jülich) provides insights into macaque and human cerebral Published her work on hypercomputational simulation research in the cortex.
In the area of brain-inspired architectures, Silvia Tolu (Technical University of Denmark) gave an insightful talk on strategic alliances between neuroscience and robotics, and Mike Davies (Intel) gave an insightful talk in the area of neuromorphic computing. We provided insight into current and future research. The conference concluded with a remark by Georg Northoff (University of Ottawa) on the need for the brain, its mind, and philosophy.
Participants discovered EBAINS tools in an interactive workshop
In addition to the lectures, attendees were invited to explore various tools provided by HBP’s EBRAINSResearch Infrastructure. The workshop introduced how EBRAINS can be used for specific scientific use cases and focused on specific tools such as the Brain Scaffold Builder, Arbor, Norse, and various visualization tools. The program was further complemented by workshops on more general topics such as the EBRAINS community, career building, and issues of dual use and misuse in neuroscience.
42 students and young researchers presented their works
At the core of the conference, the student session, young researchers presented their research in four oral presentations and two poster sessions. 42 abstracts were accepted for presentation at the conference, and young scientists used presentation slots to deliver insightful talks on their projects and discuss with their peers. Abstracts will be made available in post-meeting minutes published by Frontiers.
The HBPSC2022 Program Committee awarded the best contribution in the #HBPSC2022 Best Talk & Poster Awards. Sergio Plaza Alonso (Cajal Institute, Spain) won his Best Talk Award for his work on ‘Focused Ion Beans/Study of the Human Entorhinal Cortex by Scanning Electron Microscopy’ and the Best Poster Award went to his Francisco Páscoados Santos Given. (University of Pompeu Fabra, Spain) For his poster on “The role of excitatory-inhibitory homeostasis in the restoration of functional networks his properties after focal lesions: a computational account”.
In addition, the People’s Choice Best Abstract Awards, chosen by conference attendees, were awarded to the two young researchers who received the most votes. Henrik Mettler (University of Bern, Switzerland) for his contribution to “Evolution of Neuroplasticity Rules Using Cartesian Genetic Programming”
Networking and discussion sessions provided opportunities for extensive dialogue
Finally, #HBPSC2022 also provided a great forum for informal interaction. In the “Ask Anything” session, participants were invited to ask any question they wanted to know about how to successfully implement a research project. The two networking sessions not only exchanged participants to find new collaborations, but also invited them to discuss everyday research topics and share helpful tips and advice. Among other things, participants created a “neuroscience cheat sheet” containing useful resources on topics ranging from successful publications to mental health care.
Save date for #HBPSC2023
On behalf of the HBP Education Program and the #HBPSC2022 Program Committee, I would like to thank all speakers, workshop hosts and tutors, student presenters and participants.
Finally, we are proud to announce that the 7th HBP Student Conference on Interdisciplinary Brain Research will return as an onsite event in January 2023 at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain. More details will be announced shortly below. Webpage: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/education/HBPSC2023/
