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Forwarded on behalf of Narender Ramnani: -------------------------------------- Dear Colleague, We write on behalf of the British Neuroscience Association (BNA) to invite you to our National Meeting (Liverpool, 19th -22nd April 2009, http://www.bna.org.uk). Although the programme reflects a wide range of research areas in the neurosciences, there are specific events that we feel might be of particular interest to those working in neuroimaging, behavioural, systems and cognitive neuroscience. These include not only plenary lectures but also several symposia put together by leading UK research groups, and poster sessions. One-day Neuroimaging workshops have also been organized by the Methods Group at FIL, London and the Analysis Group at FMRIB, Oxford (cost of attendance is included in the meeting registration fee). Details for some of these events can be found below, and the full programme with other details can be found at http://www.bna.org.uk/. Liverpool has fast transport links (e.g. 2 hours 30 minutes from London) and the meeting venue (the Adelphi Hotel) is conveniently located just a few minutes walk away from the station. We also draw your attention to the bursaries for students and newly qualified post-doctoral scientists. The relatively low registration costs which cover an invitation to the Welcome Reception, lunches, tea and coffee, final programme and Book of Abstracts, access to the scientific sessions, workshops, satellite sessions, exhibition, and the Conference Banquet and Party. We hope very much that you and your colleagues are able to present your work and attend the meeting – *the abstract deadline is 31st January*. Your support means a great deal. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch ([log in to unmask]). Please pass on this information to colleagues who you feel might be interested. With thanks and best wishes on behalf of the Programme Committee, Narender Ramnani (BNA Programme Committee) Graham Collingridge (President, BNA Programme Committee) Trevor Robbins (President Elect, BNA Programme Committee) Colin Blakemore (BNA Programme Committee) ************************************************************************************************* *Selected Programme Events...* *Plenary Lectures:* • Dick Passingham (Oxford): “What is brain imaging good for?” • Malcolm Brown (Bristol): “Investigations into the neural basis of Recognition Memory” • Andrew Parker (Oxford): “Space: The final frontier in understanding the brain?” ************************************************************************************************* *One-Day Neuroimaging Workshops run by the UKs leading analysis methods groups: See 'WORKSHOP DETAILS' below for ull programme details in the following pages* i) Brain Connectivity Workshop (SPM): Dynamic Causal Modeling (www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm): The Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience (FIL) Methods Group will run a one day workshop on in SPM. ii) MRI Analysis Workshop (FSL) (www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl): The FMRIB Analysis Group (Oxford) will run a one workshop on analysis methods. ************************************************************************************************* *Symposia: * These half-day events consist of a series of talks and discussions around a specific theme • Making sense of basal ganglia and cerebellar neuroscience: a computational modelling approach Chair: Peter Redgrave (Sheffield, UK). Speakers: Kev Gurney (Sheffield, UK), Jeanette Kotaleski (Stockholm, Sweden), Rafal Bogacz (Bristol, UK) and John Porrill (Sheffield, UK). • Frontal lobe interactions during learning and decision-making Chairs: Mark Walton (Oxford, UK) and Matthew Rushworth (Oxford, UK). Speakers: Jeff Dalley (Cambridge, UK), Chris Summerfield (Oxford, UK), John Doherty (Dublin, Ireland) and Matthew Rushworth (Oxford, UK) • Brain connectivity: from structure to function Chair: Marcus Kaiser (Newcastle, UK). Speakers: Marcus Kaiser (Newcastle, UK), Heidi Johansen-Berg (Oxford, UK), Ed Bullmore (Cambridge, UK) and Kees Stam (Amsterdam, NL) • Extending the hippocampal memory system: beyond the fornix Chair: John Aggleton (Cardiff, UK). Speakers: Dimitris Tsivilis (Manchester, UK), Mark Buckley (Oxford, UK), Seralynne Vann (Cardiff, UK) and Anna Mitchell (Oxford, UK) • Neural basis of drug addiction Chair: Trevor Robbins (Cambridge, UK). Speakers: David Belin (Cambridge, UK), Hans Crombag (Sussex, UK), Jonathan Lee (Birmingham, UK) and Anne Lingford-Hughes (Bristol, UK) • Between hope and despair: sleep and circadian dysfunction in neurological disorders Chair: Jenny Morton (Cambridge, UK). Speakers: Michael Hastings (Cambridge, UK) Derk-Jan Dijk (Surrey, UK) and Eus van Sommeren (Netherlands). • Mechanisms of cortical circuit function and development: insights from the barrel cortex Chair: John Isaac (NIH, Bethesda). Speakers: Peter Kind (Edinburgh, UK), Michael Ashby (Bethesda, USA), Kevin Fox (Cardiff, UK) and John Isaac (Bethesda, USA). • Activity-dependent mechanisms in the development and plasticity of sensorimotor systems: towards understanding and treatment of cerebral palsy Chair: Gavin Clowry (Newcastle, UK). Speakers: Jens Schouenborg (Sweden), Jack Martin (New York, USA) and Janet Eyre (Newcastle, UK). • 5-HT systems in psychiatric disorders Chair: Stephen Cooper (Belfast, NI). Speakers: Peter Talbot (Manchester, UK), Phil Cowen (Oxford, UK), Angela Roberts (Cambridge, UK) and Gavin Reynolds (Belfast, NI) ************************************************************************************************* *WORKSHOP DETAILS* *Brain Connectivity Workshop: Dynamic Causal Modelling* 11.00am – 5.00pm, Sunday, 19th April, 2009, Empire Room, The Adelphi, Liverpool Organised by Dr. Stefan Kiebel, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging (FIL), UCL, in association with the BNA Functional neuroimaging studies have provided significant insights into structure-function relationships in the human brain. These advances would not have been possible without important methodological developments in the analysis of neuroimaging data. The Methods Group, under the direction of Karl Friston at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging (WTCN; www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk ), have made highly significant contributions to this process through the continuous development of theory and software implementation of the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM; www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm ) approach over a number of years. Understanding the neural basis of behaviour additionally requires explanation at a systems levels – one that characterises interactions between the nodes of networks of brain areas. In response to this requirement, the Methods Group have extended the SPM approach. Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM) characterises the ways in which interactions between brain areas changes as a function of task demands. It can be applied not only to data acquired using functional MRI (fMRI), but also using magnetoencephalography and electroencephalography (M/EEG). This is an important extension of existing analysis approaches to neuroimaging, and the method is rapidly gaining in popularity. The one-day symposium is therefore timely and promises to be popular among the large population of UK systems and cognitive neuroscientists who use functional neuroimaging methods. In this workshop, we will discuss various DCM approaches for fMRI and M/EEG and illustrate their utility using published imaging studies. We will focus on the types of hypotheses that can be tested using the different model types. The speakers, all members of the WTCN Methods Group, are recognised for their contributions to the development of the DCM approach. Programme 11.00am – 11.30am: Coffee, Welcome and Introduction : Stefan Kiebel Introduction and motivation for Dynamic Causal Modelling (DCM) 11.30am – 12.20pm: Mohamed Seghier DCM for functional magnetic resonance imaging 12.20pm– 13.10pm: Stefan Kiebel DCM for evoked responses in magneto/encephalography 1.10pm – 2.00pm: Lunch break 2.00pm – 2.50pm: Chuan Chen DCM for induced responses in magneto/encephalography 2.50pm – 3.40pm: Rosalyn Moran DCM for local field potentials 3.40pm – 4.10pm Tea/coffee 4.10pm – 4.50pm: Summary, Questions and Panel Discussion ************************************************************************************************* MRI Analysis Workshop: Analysis of Structural, Diffusion and Functional MRI Data Wednesday, 22nd April, 2009, 1.00pm – 6.00pm, Empire Room, The Adelphi Organised by Dr. Christian Beckmann (Centre for fMRI of the Brain (FMRIB), University of Oxford) in association with the BNA The FMRIB Centre (www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk) at Oxford University is internationally recognised for the excellence of its research in various areas of human neuroimaging. In particular, members of the Analysis Group, under the direction of Prof. Steve Smith, have been responsible for the development of a range of methods that have made a major impact on the ways in which cognitive neuroscientists approach the analysis of MRI data. These form a suite of tools (FMRIB Software Library; www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl ) that are regarded as indispensible to researchers using MRI to study the structure and function of the brain. During the workshop, there will be a review of standard methods as well as comprehensive descriptions of new developments in image analysis. This will be an excellent opportunity for behavioural and cognitive neuroscientists in the UK to update their knowledge of well-established methods and the latest theoretical and practical advances in image analysis for MRI data. The workshop will have wide appeal not only to beginners in neuroimaging, but also to those who are experienced in this range of methods. Talks will be grouped into three sessions. The first will focus on the treatment of Structural MRI, the second on Diffusion MRI and the third on Functional MRI. Talks will cover both introductory and advanced material. There will be an opportunity to attendees to discuss analysis-related issues with speakers at the end of the workshop. Programme 1.00pm – 1.30pm Lunch and Introduction (Christian Beckmann) 1.30pm – 2.45pm Structural MRI (Gwenaëlle Douaud and Jesper Anderson) o Brain-extraction o Linear & nonlinear registration o Segmentation (tissue-type & subcortical) o Applications: SIENA & FSL-VBM 2.45pm – 3.45pm Diffusion MRI (Saad Jbabdi) o Probabilistic tractography o TBSS voxelwise multi-subject analysis 3.45pm -4.00pm Tea and cakes 4.00pm – 5.30pm Functional MRI (Christian Beckmann and Salima Makni) o Preprocessing o First-level stats o Multi-subject stats o ICA model-free analysis 5.30pm – 6.00pm Summary, Questions to speaker