This international meeting on the characterization, measurement, and analysis of the brain over the lifespan will focus specifically on attainable means by which investigators from Pacific Rim nations may maximize collaborative neuroimaging effort in addressing the scientific and clinical challenges facing this dynamic and multi-disciplinary field.

“New Horizons in Human Brain Imaging: Neuroimaging across the Lifespan” will provide context and understanding for basic cognitive processes that depend upon the integration of neural information from disparate brain regions; insight into disruptions of connectivity in debilitating neurological and psychiatric conditions such as severe mental illnesses, including addictions and suicide, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s Disease; how best to associate gene variance with changes in brain and make clinical predictions; providing a refined vision for the utility of in vivo human brain imaging for the measurement of clinical phenotypes; encouraging and facilitating international interactions around the Pacific Rim; as well as providing a highly interactive means for enhancing lifespan neuroscience education.

Brain Imaging Methodologies

This meeting will focus on the future of BOLD, diffusion imaging (dMRI), positron emission tomographic (PET) and combinations of structural and functional human brain imaging methodologies and their applications relative to neuroimaging in pediatric, adolescent, and adult samples.

High resolution imaging, cognitive, behavioral, pharmacological, and genetic neuroimaging will be topics of discussion in addition to their integration with related methods such as electroencephalography (M/EEG). Additionally, we will scrutinize some of the most cutting edge clinical, basic, and computational neuroscience applications of imaging methodologies, what these mean for future studies of brain structural and functional connectivity, and the genetic underpinnings of neural development, mid-life, and aging. Informatics methodologies will be a particularly important element for dealing with the challenges of dealing with large neuroimaging and genetic data sets.

A Neuroimaging Data Science Bootcamp

The meeting will include an intensive neuroimaging hands-on data science workshop specifically designed for research trainees to learn about available neuroimaging data resources, data processing workflow methods, and how to model brain trajectories across the lifespan. A particular focus will be placed making neuroimaging research Findable, Accessible, Interoperative, and Re-Usable – the, so-called, FAIR Principles. Open source software practices will be highlighted and encouraged, as will data provenance and scientific reproducibility.