2023 Conference

2023 Conference

Join us between September 21-23, 2023 at the prestigious Wellcome Collection in central London - a world-renowned venue exploring science, medicine, life, and art - for two days filled with some of the very best non-invasive brain stimulation and imaging research being carried out around the world. Researchers will also have the option to join us virtually to provide extra flexibility for travel considerations.

About the Brainbox Initiative Conference:

Arriving back in central London for its 7th annual conference since its inception in 2017, the Brainbox Initiative Conference has highlighted and promoted the exceptionally groundbreaking work being carried out by early and mid-career neuroscientists at the forefront of non-invasive brain stimulation research. 

Our early-career speakers will be to sharing their work, research, and insights on stage side-by-side with our world-renowned keynote speakers whose distinguished careers have helped to shape the field, as well as providing a supportive, welcoming, and inclusive environment to develop new connections and explore exciting new avenues for research projects.

As well as a range of stimulating talks, the Brainbox Initiative Conference programme is supported by a range of interactive demonstrations and exhibitions of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques in action, allowing attendees to see some of the latest technologies up close and personal and gain expert technical insights into the development of exciting new systems.

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Our speakers

Professor Walter Paulus

Professor Walter Paulus

Ludwig Maximilians University

Keynote Address

Professor André Brunoni

Professor André Brunoni

University of São Paulo

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)

Professor Simon Hanslmayr

Professor Simon Hanslmayr

University of Glasgow

Neural Foundations of Human Cognition

Dr Domenica Veniero

Dr Domenica Veniero

University of Nottingham

Non-invasive Brain Stimulation combined with EEG

Dr Keith Murphy

Dr Keith Murphy

Stanford University

Ultrasound Neuromodulation

Dr Róisín Mc Mackin

Dr Róisín Mc Mackin

Trinity College Dublin

EEG and TMS

Dr Maria Gallagher

Dr Maria Gallagher

University of Kent

Vestibular Stimulation

Dr Lennart Verhagen

Dr Lennart Verhagen

Donders Institute, Centre for Cognition, Radboud University

iTRUSST

Dr Daisy Thompson-Lake

Dr Daisy Thompson-Lake

Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University

Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound

Dr Jerome Sallet

Dr Jerome Sallet

INSERM, University of Oxford

Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS)

Dr Danielle Kurtin

Dr Danielle Kurtin

Imperial College London

Noninvasive Temporal Interference Stimulation of the Human Hippocampus

Dr Lauren Hadley

Dr Lauren Hadley

University of Nottingham

Neurocognitive Mechanisms - Research Challenge Update

Ingrid Odermatt

Ingrid Odermatt

ETH Zurich

TMS-Based Motor Imagery Neurofeedback

Samaneh Rashidi

Samaneh Rashidi

University of Surrey

tRNS on Language Learning

Luke Priestley

Luke Priestley

University of Oxford

Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS)

Dr Meghan Gonsalves

Dr Meghan Gonsalves

Brown University

Potential Biomarkers of rTMS Outcomes in Major Depression

Karen Wendt

Karen Wendt

University of Oxford

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Dr Alex Tang

Dr Alex Tang

University of Western Australia

The Synaptic and Non-Synaptic Plasticity Mechanisms of Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Professor Walter Paulus

Professor Walter Paulus

Ludwig Maximilians University

Professor Walter Paulus started his career in neurology at the University Hospital for Neurology in Düsseldorf in 1979. In 1980 he spent 6 months at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. From 1982 he worked at the Alfried Krupp Hospital in Essen and then from 1984 at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. He was appointed as Professor and Chair and Clinical Director of the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany from 1992 to 2021. After retirement in Göttingen he continues at presentresearch at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Department of Neurology as a research professor with EU funded projects there.

His research focus involved development of new stimulation methods for induction of neuroplasticity such as tDCS, tACS and tRNS and many other aspects in non-invasive brain stimulation (researcher ID Web of Science: A-3544-2009, highly cited; Walter Paulus on Google scholar). His clinical oriented research focus encompasses epilepsy, restless legs syndrome, Parkinson’s disease and pain. Awards: Price for the best thesis of the University of Düsseldorf (1979); Hans Berger Preis of the DGKN (2016) and Pierre Gloor award of the ACNS (2022). From 2014 to 2018 he was chairman of the European and African Chapter of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology (IFCN) and from 2018 to 2022 President of the IFCN, at present serving as past president.

Professor André Brunoni

Professor André Brunoni

University of São Paulo

André Russowsky Brunoni, MD, PhD, MBA

  • Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of São Paulo FMUSP;
  • Psychiatrist graduated from USP in 2004;
  • Residency in Internal Medicine (2005-2007);
  • Psychiatry (2007-2010) by the Faculty of Medicine of USP;
  • PhD in Behavioral Neurosciences from the Institute of Psychology at USP (2010-2012);
  • Sandwich Doctorate at Harvard Medical School (2011-2012);
  • Head of the Interventional Psychiatrist division of the Institute of Psychiatry.

Professor Simon Hanslmayr

Professor Simon Hanslmayr

University of Glasgow

Simon is a Professor at the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging and School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Glasgow. He is the director of the Cognition and Oscillations Lab where he investigates the neural foundations of human cognition. His research focuses on rhythmic neural interactions (brain oscillations) with a focus on memory and attention. Simon studied Psychology at the University of Salzburg where he obtained his PhD in 2005 under supervision of Prof. Wolfgang Klimesch. He held a postdoc position (2006-2010) at the University of Regensburg (supervisor Prof. K.H. Bäuml), before joining the Zukunftskolleg in 2010 at the University of Konstanz as an independent PI funded by an Emmy Noether programme grant from the DFG. In 2013 Simon moved to the UK where he joined the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham as a Senior Lecturer, and was promoted to Reader in 2016. In 2020 Simon joined the University of Glasgow as a full Professor. 

Dr Domenica Veniero

Dr Domenica Veniero

University of Nottingham

Domenica is an assistant professor at the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham. She obtained a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Brescia (Italy) working on how non-invasive brain stimulation can be combined with EEG. She then moved to Rome for a post-doctoral position at "Foundazione Santa Lucia" where she investigated the role of brain oscillations in cortical connectivity and plasticity within the motor system. From 2013 to 2019, she worked at the School of Psychology at the University of Glasgow. Here, she studied the role of brain oscillations in perception and top-down control within the visual system. Her main interests are the role of brain oscillations in both long-range cortical communication and local brain activity and the characterization of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation effects on cortical excitability and behavioural performance.

Dr Keith Murphy

Dr Keith Murphy

Stanford University

Keith Murphy is a research scientist at Stanford University and the technical co-founder and VP of innovation at Attune Neurosciences. Stemming from a background in building high throughput behavioral systems, he joined Stanford as a Kirschstein postdoctoral fellow to develop optical technologies for monitoring focused ultrasound effects on the deep brain of freely behaving animals. At Attune Neurosciences, he is building novel ultrasound systems and approaches for treating sleep and psychiatric disorders.

Dr Róisín Mc Mackin

Dr Róisín Mc Mackin

Trinity College Dublin

Dr McMackin undertook her PhD in Clinical Medicine at Trinity College Dublin, using EEG and TMS to study cortical network malfunction in motor neurone disease. She subsequently undertook postdoctoral work expanding this work to see if EEG and TMS-based measures can be used as motor neurone disease biomarkers. Dr McMackin is now an Assistant Professor in the Discipline of Physiology at Trinity College Dublin, where her team continue to research how we can sensitively, economically and non-invasively measure normal and impaired brain activity using electrophysiological methods. Roisin is particularly focussed on undertaking research which is clinically translatable, which can lead to more accurate detection, prediction and treatment of diseases.

Dr Maria Gallagher

Dr Maria Gallagher

University of Kent

Maria is a Lecturer in Cognition and Neuroscience at the University of Kent. She completed her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, investigating a multisensory integration perspective on cybersickness in Virtual Reality. Her research interests centre on understanding vestoular processing and multisensory conflicts, and she uses psychophysics, virtual reality, and vestibular stimulation to address her research questions.

Dr Lennart Verhagen

Dr Lennart Verhagen

Donders Institute, Centre for Cognition, Radboud University

Dr Lennart Verhagen is an Assistant Professor at the Donders Institute, Centre for Cognition, of the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

In his work he develops new non-invasive brain stimulation techniques to modulate neural circuits. Lennart is working on novel ultrasound neuromodulation techniques to alter brain areas with high precision, especially areas deep in the brain, such as the amygdala and caudate. He also extends more conventional approaches, for example using paired-associative TMS approaches to couple or uncouple specific cortical connections supporting decision making.

Dr Daisy Thompson-Lake

Dr Daisy Thompson-Lake

Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University

Daisy Thompson-Lake is an Assistant Professor and Addiction Research Neuroscientist at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University. Her work focuses on using cutting-edge neuromodulation technologies to improve outcomes for patients with substance use disorder. She is involved with several clinical trials using techniques such as low-intensity focused ultrasound, deep brain stimulation, and transcranial magnetic stimulation to reduce cravings in opioid use disorder. Using multiple neuroimaging methods, she endeavors to enhance understanding of the functional and structural changes occurring after treatments and uncover the underlying mechanisms of neuromodulation on substance craving. 

Dr Jerome Sallet

Dr Jerome Sallet

INSERM, University of Oxford

Dr Jerome Sallet, INSERM

Dr Danielle Kurtin

Dr Danielle Kurtin

Imperial College London

Danielle Kurtin recently completed her PhD at the University of Surrey investigating the context-dependent reconfigurations of functional connectivity and brain network dynamics in response to noninvasive brain stimulation and underpinning cognitive processes. As a postdoc at Imperial College London, her focus has shifted from healthy controls to populations with substance use disorder, and she’s added psychedelics to her neuromodulatory toolkit.

Dr Lauren Hadley

Dr Lauren Hadley

University of Nottingham

Lauren completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh in 2016, addressing how people make predictions when playing music together in comparison to conversing together, and has since held postdocs focusing on communication strategies and cognitive control. In 2018 she moved to Hearing Sciences - Scottish Section, an outpost of the University of Nottingham, to study conversation behaviour. She currently holds a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, in which she is investigating how hearing loss affects neurocognitive mechanisms underlying interaction, in order to find new ways to support people with hearing impairment.

Ingrid Odermatt

Ingrid Odermatt

ETH Zurich

Ingrid Odermatt is a fourth-year Neuroscience PhD student in the Neural Control of Movement Lab at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She received a B. Sc. and M. Sc. in Psychology from the University of Bern, Switzerland.

In her current research, Ingrid uses fMRI and TMS to study the brain's ability to modulate the motor system without overt movement in TMS-based neurofeedback training. This TMS-based neurofeedback training aims to selectively increase corticomotor excitability for individual finger representations through motor imagery. Ingrid’s PhD project focuses on the effects of this training on the neural representations of the individual fingers in healthy participants. To investigate this, she uses fMRI to explore the neural activity patterns of imagined and executed finger movements and paired-pulse TMS protocols to gain insight into the intracortical processes that contribute to improved performance in the neurofeedback task. This project intends to provide the basis for a neurorehabilitation intervention that does not rely on overt movements and aims to improve fine motor functions e.g., after a stroke or spinal cord injury.

Samaneh Rashidi

Samaneh Rashidi

University of Surrey

Samaneh is a Neuroscience PhD student at the University of Surrey, UK, under the supervision of Professor Roi Cohen Kadosh (Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience) and Dr Alireza Tamaddoni-Nezhad (Associate Professor in Machine Learning and Computational Intelligence). Since the start of their MS they have been working on the topics of system and quantitative neuroscience and working on multidisciplinary approaches for treatment of neurodegenerative and cognitive disorders. Samaneh's PhD project aims to develop a non-invasive and relatively safe neuromodulatingtechnique for improving language learning. In this project, they will examine how brain stimulation could enhance our language abilities. They will use a novel artificial intelligence (AI) approach to personalise these brain-based interventions that have been shown to improve other cognitive functions, in order to maximise their benefit on language abilities in healthy individuals. Samaneh believes their project will pave the way using psychological and neuroscientific knowledge, together with methods from AI, to improve language performance.

Luke Priestley

Luke Priestley

University of Oxford

Luke is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Matthew Rushworth and Dr Nima Khalighinejad. His research concerns the neural mechanisms of decision-making, with a particular emphasis on the ascending neuromodulatory systems – an amalgam of nuclei in the brainstem and midbrain which release fundamental neuromodulatory chemicals. He uses a combination of quantitative modelling, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation to address these questions in the brains of humans and non-human primates.

Dr Meghan Gonsalves

Dr Meghan Gonsalves

Brown University

Dr. Meghan Gonsalves is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University in Providence, RI, where she works with Dr. Jennifer Barredo. She recently defended her dissertation in Neuroscience at Brown University in July 2023, and received her ScB in Cognitive Neuroscience and ScM in Behavioral and Social Health Sciences from Brown University in 2017 and 2018. Her dissertation examined the effects of rTMS on glutamatergic and N-acetylated metabolite levels as measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy in individuals with treatment resistant depression. Dr. Gonsalves' research aims to elucidate how neurometabolites (1) predict rTMS outcomes, (2) relate to rTMS-associated changes in resting state functional connectivity, and (3) relate to changes in domains of MDD symptoms following rTMS. She hopes to make spectroscopy a more widely-used tool in uncovering the neurometabolic mechanisms of non-invasive brain stimulation in populations with severe affective disorders. 

 

Karen Wendt

Karen Wendt

University of Oxford

Karen Wendt received her MEng degree in Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College London, UK, in 2019. She is currently pursuing a D.Phil. degree in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford with a MRC industrial CASE studentship in partnership with Magstim Company Ltd, Wales. She is investigating and validating an enhanced transcranial magnetic stimulator with an extended parameter set under the supervision of Prof. Tim Denison and Prof. Jacinta O’Shea. Her research interests include the application of computational modelling to characterise the effect of brain stimulation on neurons and machine learning to find optimal stimulation parameters.

Dr Alex Tang

Dr Alex Tang

University of Western Australia

Alex is a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia and the Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Sciences. He completed his PhD in Australia with A/Prof Jennifer Rodger where he investigated the cellular mechanisms of rTMS-induced plasticity using rodent models. For his first post-doc, he moved to Japan to investigate how oscillations in the resting membrane potential of neurons modulate neuronal spiking. Alex returned to Australia on a combined teaching a research position in late 2018, and in 2023, started an independent research group. A major focus of his group is to use animal and human brain tissue models to understand how non-invasive brain stimulation can be used to harness neural plasticity in the intact brain, and for the treatment of neurological conditions.

FAQs

What is the Brainbox Initiative Conference?

The Brainbox Initiative Conference is an annual meeting that puts the work being carried out by early and mid-career researchers at the forefront. The conference focuses on brain stimulation techniques, including TMS, tES, TUS/tFUS and neuroimaging.

What will the conference cover?

This year, the conference will focus on:

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques;
Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES/tDCS/tACS/tRNS) techniques;
Transcranial-focused ultrasound stimulation;
Neuroimaging and methodologies

How will I attend the virtual part of the conference?

For all attendees, registration will cover access to the conference and all of the talks taking place. In-person attendees are also invited to join us for refreshments throughout the day, a food and drink reception, and entry to the poster hall.

How can I present a poster at the Brainbox Initiative Conference?

The call for posters for the Brainbox Initiative Conference is currently open until September 1, 2023. Please use the form located on the conference page to submit your abstract and our Scientific Committee will review your submission.

Will there be an evening reception?

There will be an evening reception at the end of the first conference day with drinks and small dishes that all in-person attendees are welcome to attend.

What else can I do at the Brainbox Initiative Conference?

As we will be hosting at the prestigious Wellcome Collection in the centre of London, we invite everyone attending in person to join us for an extended poster session following the first day of the conference as well as explore the historical city.

I won't be able to travel to London to attend - Can I attend virtually?

The Brainbox Initiative Conference will be running as a hybrid event for 2023, allowing researchers the option to join us in person at the Wellcome Collection or via our virtual conference platform.

What times will the conference run? Can I view the programme?

We anticipate that the conference will run from 09:00-17:00 (GMT), with additional time on September 21 for a food and wine reception for poster presenters and attendees.

We are working hard to publish the programme as soon as possible.

Will I receive a Certificate of Attendance for the Brainbox Initiative Conference?

We are happy to issue a Certificate of Attendance to attendees, poster presenters, and speakers of the conference. Please ensure that you request your certificate before January 1, 2024.

Award winners

Dr. Elsa Fouragnan

John Rothwell Award 2023
Dr. Elsa Fouragnan

Dr. Fouragnan's research centers on the neurobiology of decision-making and learning, examining these aspects in both healthy adults and individuals with psychiatric disorders. After working as a biomedical engineer, contributing to the development of clinical devices related to the brain, Dr. Fouragnan transitioned to an academic career in computational neuroscience at the universities of Glasgow and Oxford. Her previous research concentrated on demonstrating the feasibility of transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation in safely and temporarily altering neural activity within specific areas of the brain, particularly deep regions associated with fundamental cognitive and motivational processes. Currently, Dr. Fouragnan is dedicated to advancing this technology and applying it to address mental health challenges.

Dr. Joshua Brown

Young Investigator Award 2023
Dr. Joshua Brown

Joshua C. Brown, MD, PhD, is a neuroscientist dually trained in psychiatry and neurology. He directs the Brain Stimulation Mechanisms Laboratory and serves as the Director of Research and Medical Director of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) at McLean Hospital of Harvard Medical School. His research interests are focused on understanding the synaptic-level mechanisms of TMS and leveraging this knowledge to improve and eventually optimize its clinical effectiveness for indications of brain medicine.

Dr. Debby Klooster

Research Challenge Award 2023
Dr. Debby Klooster

Debby Klooster has a background in biomedical engineering (Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands) and is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University (Belgium). Her research is funded by the research foundation Flanders (FWO) and focuses on personalising brain stimulation protocols by using multimodal imaging data (MRI and EEG). Even though her previous work mostly focused on TMS and tDCS, Debby will focus on TUS in the Research Challenge Award project. Specifically, she aims to implement EEG-triggered TUS and to investigate if EEG-derived brain states influence the responses to TUS.

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2023 conference posters