Session Chairs:

Anna Devor Boston Univ. (United States)

Shy Shoham NYU Langone Health (United States)

3:30 PM
Welcome and Opening Remarks

3:35 PM
How to image anywhere in the brain through 100μ thin fibre

Tomáš Čižmár Friedrich-Schiller Univ. (Germany)

Light-based in-vivo brain imaging relies on the transportation of light through highly scattering tissues over long distances. As scattering gradually reduces imaging contrast and resolution, it becomes challenging to visualize structures at greater depths, even when using multiphoton techniques. A recently proposed strategy involves the exploitation of holographic control of light transport through multimode optical fibres, which promises superior imaging performance combined with uniquely atraumatic application. Following the review of the fundamental and technological bases, the talk will introduce a 110 μm thin laser-scanning endo-microscope, which enables volumetric imaging of the entire depth of the mouse brain in vivo.

Tomáš Čižmár is a professor of Wave Optics at the Friedrich-Schiller University and the head of the Fibre Research and Technology department of the Leibniz-Institute of Photonic Technology in Jena. Further, he leads the group of Complex Photonics at the institute of Scientific Instruments in Brno. Throughout his scientific career he took part in a variety of inter-disciplinary projects in Bio-Medical Photonics, mostly related to optical manipulation, digital holography, and microscopy. His recent research activities are focused on Photonics in optically random environments (particularly multimode fibres) and deep-tissue in-vivo imaging.


4:00 PM
Infrared neural stimulation: an emerging technology for interfacing with brain circuits at mesoscale

Anna Wang Roe Zhejiang Univ. (China)

Infrared neural stimulation is an optical stimulation methodology which delivers brief trains of small heat pulses leading to neuronal response modulation. In the past several years, we have tailored this method for stimulation of focal activation of single cortical columns in ultrahigh field MRI in the monkey brain, revealing functional networks of mesoscale sites at brainwide scale. The network activations, which span sensory , motor, cognitive, and limbic areas of the brain, offer novel understanding of network architecture in the primate brain. These findings have important implications for precision medicine, brain machine interface design, and the organization of primate intelligence.

Anna Wang Roe (B.A. Harvard University 1984, Ph.D. MIT 1991) is Director of the Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. As a Sloan, Packard, SPIE, and AAAS Fellow, she is known for her studies in visual and somatosensory processing in primate cerebral cortex and for development of optical and MRI neurotechnologies. She is currently developing a visual cortical neuroprosthetic and establishing a mesoscale functional connectome in macaque monkeys using the novel INS-fMRI method. Her work impacts the fields of precision medicine, brain-machine interface, and understanding the architectural basis of primate intelligence.


4:20 PM
Towards illuminating brain function throughout childhood development with high-density diffuse optical tomography

Adam Eggebrecht Washington Univ. Saint Louis (United States)

Mapping of human brain function has revolutionized systems neuroscience. Common brain mapping methods such as fMRI offer promising sensitivity yet pose significant methodological challenges in studies of naturally behaving children due to the loud, constraining environment and extreme susceptibility to motion-induced artifacts. Recent developments in high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) have demonstrated dramatically improved image quality over traditional fNIRS methods. In this talk, I will discuss challenges associated with mapping brain function in children in natural settings, recent advancements in developing HD-DOT methods, and applications in childhood development, autism spectrum disorder, and critical care environments.

Adam Eggebrecht received his PhD in Physics from Washington University in Saint Louis in the lab of Dr. Ralf Wessel studying evolutionary systems neuroscience. As a postdoc, he joined the lab of Dr. Joseph Culver, where he worked on advancing high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) hardware and computational imaging algorithms. Currently, Dr. Eggebrecht’s Brain Light Laboratory focuses on further developing and applying HD-DOT methods to studies on childhood development with a focus on congenital heart disease and autism, as well as developing and disseminating NeuroDOT computational tools for modeling and analyses for optical functional neuroimaging.


4:45 PM
Data science for neuronal imaging: the micro, the meso, and the macro

	Adam Charles Johns Hopkins Univ. (United States)
	Gal Mishne Univ. of California, San Diego (United States)

Uncovering the principles of neural computation requires new methods to observe and interpret data across scales and analyze the resulting high-dimensional time-series. In this talk, we will cover recent advances in the analysis of functional optical microscopy to maximize the utility across scales. At the micron scale we will discuss ongoing work in imaging and tracking synaptic strength in-vivo at scale. At the meso scale we will discuss robust and flexible image segmentation, including morphology-independent segmentation for identifying geometrically complex objects (e.g., dendrites), and alignment of imaging sessions across days for longitudinal recordings. At the macro scale we will demonstrate how morphology-independent segmentation can further apply to widefield and functional Ultrasound data. Finally, we will briefly mention advances in validation of imaging tools using biophysical simulations.

Adam Charles is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, with affiliations with the Center for Imaging Science, the Mathematical Institute for Data Science, and the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute. His research focuses on the acquisition and interpretation of neural data, including neural imaging technologies, inference and tracking of sparse and structured signals, and mathematical modeling of neural networks. Adam received his B.E. and M.E in ECE from The Cooper Union, his Ph.D. in ECE at Georgia Tech, and was a Post-doc at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute.

Gal Mishne is an assistant professor in the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI) at UC San Diego, and affiliated with the ECE department, the CSE department and the Neurosciences Graduate program. Her research interests include high-dimensional data analysis, geometric representation learning, image processing and computational neuroscience. Before joining UCSD, Dr. Mishne was a Gibbs Assistant Professor in the Applied Math program at Yale University. She holds B.Sc. degrees in EE and Physics from the Technion and completed her Ph.D. in EE at the Technion in 2017. Dr. Mishne is a 2017 Rising Star in EECS and Emerging Scholar in Science.

5:20 PM
Final Discussion