Synopsis

Keynote Lecture

Hirohisa Watanabe

Brain & Mind Research Center, Nagoya University, Japan

Title: Visualizing the Brain Network and Protein Aging: The Intrinsic Dynamism Overcoming Dementia

In this presentation, I will demonstrate the relationship between tau/MAO-B PET accumulation and brain network changes in healthy people and in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, I will also discuss the usefulness of voxel-based hub network analysis to identify some novel insights into the intrinsic dynamism of the dementia process.

Session 1 - Methods in Neuroimaging: The Basics

Toshiharu Nakai

Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan

Title: Overview of functional neuroimaging and the principles of fMRI

Thirty years have passed since Seiji Ogawa established blood oxygen level dependency (BOLD) in 1989, which opened the gate toward the new world of brain researches. BOLD was the new and original finding of an intrinsic brain signal since that of electroencephalogram by Berger in 1929. The mechanisms of BOLD contrast generation, its physiological characteristics and what spontaneous oscillations of BOLD signal represents will be reviewed.

Chiao-Yi Wu

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Title: Data acquisition and analysis: How to design a task and what can be observed

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) offers a powerful and non-invasive technique to measure brain activity during a task. A suitable experimental design for the task is essential to ensure that the task evokes the process of interest that can be measured by fMRI. The selection of appropriate data processing procedures and statistical analysis is critical to generate reliable results that can be attributed to the process of interest. In this presentation, I will introduce the basic principles of fMRI experimental design, whereby I will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different types of designs. Next, I will talk about how to deal with fMRI data in terms of image preprocessing and statistical analysis using the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) software as an example.

Eric Tatt Wei Ho

Center for Intelligent Signal and Imaging Research, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia

Title: Introduction to Neuroimaging Software & Methods for Analysis of Brain Volume and Fiber Tracts

Structural analysis of brains provide important clues in the study of neurodegeneration and disease in the brain. I will introduce the concepts, statistical methods and steps for performing region-based volumetric analysis and neural fiber tract analysis using open source software tools.

BrainLab Luncheon Lecture

Manuel Mariano

St. Luke's Medical Center Institute for Neurosciences, Philippines

Title: fMRI and DTI in Surgical Planning

Use of fMRI ad DTI are important in planning best surgical approach to neurologic disorders. These modalities are helpful for precision in order to minimize injury to neural structures including white matter tracts during surgery. Various cases with clinical application of such neurotechnologies and their outcomes will be presented in this lecture.

Session 2 - Mapping Networks, Functional Systems and Behavior

Annabel Chen Shen-Hsing

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Title: A brief overview of mapping brain function and connectivity with fMRI

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) has provided a grand avenue in the quest of understanding how our brain functions. Mirroring the historical neuroscience debates in lesion studies of functional localization, fMRI in recent years has exponentially advanced from functional specialization in the initial decade to focus on functional integration. The conceptualisation of most fMRI studies today has been on functional brain networks and connectivity. The talk will provide a brief overview of brain functional connectivity, in terms of co-activity in resting-state and task state, direct influence of one region on another (effective connectivity) and basic concepts in modelling functional connectivity in fMRI (network analysis).

Fan-Pei Gloria Yang

Center for Cognition and Mind Sciences, National Tsinghua University, Taiwan

Title: Functional connectivity for cognitive control in the elders in Taiwan

Research has shown that cognitive control is affected by aging and neurodegenrative disorders. The Stroop task has been used to investigate the cognitive control capacity in healthy elders and MCI patients and elicited distinctive differences in activation patterns between the disease-impacted and healthy elders. The disruptions in grey and white matters resulting from neurodegenration and aging may have led to rewiring of the network pathways for cognitive control. Yet the distinction in functional connectivity has not been studied in previous research. The present study will focus on the connectivity of networks related to cognitive control, such as the specialized cognitive control network in the DLPFC-ACC and the functionally integrated executive network in general.

Yu Sun

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, China

Title: Brain network analysis and its applications in neuroergonomics (EEG)

Over the last decade, researchers have suggested new application field for brain-computer interface technology. A research focus shift from device-control for clinical population to monitor cognitive and emotion states for general non-clinical populations has been emerged. This presentation will focus on brain state monitoring using EEG functional connectivity approach, with particular focus on mental fatigue and mental workload detection. Specifically, we found a disrupted connectivity pattern during mental fatigue state induced by various tasks, leading to a less efficient information processing which may underlie the well-known performance decline. Mental workload detection was also achieved through combining advanced functional connectivity feature selection method and machine learning. The findings of these studies may have implication for real-world operators whose working environments are prone to mental fatigue or high mental workload.

Title: Multimodal brain network and its applications in schizophrenia studies

Emerging evidence suggests that schizophrenia is associated with brain dysconnectivity. In this presentation, I will give a brief overview of structural connectivity analysis approach, then focus on its application in revealing the psychopathology of schizophrenia from the following three aspects: 1) was brain dysconnectivity hemisphere dependent; 2) would functional connectivity be influenced by the underlying anatomical structural dysconnectivity; 3) what is the longitudinal changes of structural connectivity in schizophrenia. Our findings provide some of the first quantitative insights into the multimodal brain dysconnectivity in schizophrenia and highlight the potential for using brain network measures as neural biomarkers for schizophrenia classification.

Session 3 - Imaging Healthy Aging and Neuroplasticity

Atsunobu Suzuki

Department of Psychology, The University of Tokyo, Japan

Title: Age-Related Differences in Emotion and Social Cognition

There is an increasing interest in the effects of aging on emotion and social cognition, given their prevailing effects on the quality of life of the elderly and intergenerational communication. This brief lecture introduces a couple of key concepts and findings from psychological and neuroscientific research on this problem, with a special focus on age-related differences in trust.

Jacqueline Dominguez

St. Luke's Medical Center Institute for Neurosciences, Philippines

Title: Improving Neurocognition through DAnce and Kinesthetics (INDAK)

The challenges facing the aging phenomenon has spurred interest in strategies to promote cognitive healthy aging and prevent decline. We describe a how dance intervention called INDAK (Improving Neurocognition though Dance and Kinesthetics) or “rhythm”, a modular structured dance that combines a complex and cognitively challenging activity with physical exercise and pleasurable social interaction, can provide benefits on cognition and mood on elderly with Mild Cognitive Impairment . Dance is an activity that is doable, enjoyable and suits the the culture and social environment of the Filipino elderly which makes this a sustainable approach to maintain cognition and prevent dementia.

Toshiharu Nakai

Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Japan

Title: Functional Changes of Aging Brain and Brain Reserve

The concept of ‘active (successful) aging’ indicates the direction that longer life must be accompanied by continuing opportunities for health and social activities. To sustain active daily life in aging, interventions for older adults as an autonomic management of potential physical and cognitive decline to sustain have been promoted. The age-dependent neuro-physiological change observed by fMRI (demand-reservation balance), the concept of cognitive reserve, and the effects of cognitive training and social program will be discussed.

Session 4 - Clinical Neuroimaging and Neurotechnology

Hans Ludwig Damian

St. Luke's Medical Center Institute for Neurosciences, Philippines

Title: TMS in Neurologic Disease: Philippine Experience

The US FDA approved recurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation (r-TMS) as treatment for medication-resistant depression in 2008. Since then the number of disease entities that may benefit from various rTMS treatments has expanded. We initiated the first rTMS treatment center in the Philippines in 2016 for the benefit of the medical community here. I will summarize the basics of rTMS, discuss our experience and data on rTMS patient outcomes, as well as challenges and potential future applications and avenues for collaboration.

Shohei Kato

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya Institute of Technology

Title: Classification of FTLD/ALS/AD Using Speech Analysis During Cognitive Tasks

On the power of AI-based technology, we have developed an easy screening tool for dementia and mild cognitive impairment from elderly speech during cognitive tasks. In this talk, we will report an examination of classifying dementia: frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Alicia Goodwill

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Title: Transcranial direct-current stimulation in stroke rehabilitation: evidence and challenges

Transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive, portable and inexpensive technique that can modulate neural activity within the brain. tDCS has received growing interest for its potential to facilitate motor function in a range of neurological conditions such as stroke. However, despite promising results in individual studies, current reviews suggest the benefits of tDCS on functional recovery and activities of daily living in stroke patients remain inconclusive. In this presentation, I will present data from a study performed in Australia, which applied tDCS during motor training, and discuss some of the challenges pertaining to individual variability and future directions to enhance the clinical applicability of tDCS in neurorehabilitation.

Angelito A. Silverio

Department of Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

Title: Modern and Emerging Brain-based technologies for Diagnostics and Therapy using Systems on Chip Approach

In this talk, we shall look at modern and emerging technologies applied in neurological and neurosurgical studies including smart data knife, neural dust, and implantable brain machine interfaces that utilize embedded sensing, conditioning, actuation and wireless capability using system on chip approaches based on advanced complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology.

Luncheon Lecture

Epifanio Bagarinao

Brain & Mind Research Center, Nagoya University, Japan

Title: The Aging Brain: Changes in Large-Scale Functional Networks over the Adult Lifespan

Aging is associated with both structural and functional changes in the brain even in the absence of neurodegenerative diseases. In this talk, I will present the findings of our ongoing aging study. Briefly, we used resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from Nagoya University’s Brain and Mind Research Center aging cohort study to examine changes in the functional organization of several large-scale brain networks over the adult lifespan. Our findings showed widespread reorganization of functional brain networks with increasing age.

Session 5 - Cutting Edge of Neuroimaging Methods

Roy Allan Torcuator

St. Luke's Medical Center Institute for Neurosciences, Philippines

Title: Feasibility of intra-operative resting fMRI

Intraoperative MRI is a valuable tool in maximizing safe neurosurgical resection of gliomas. The addition of preoprerative fMRI and DTI further improve the surgical resection for gliomas. However, the accuracy of the fMRI and DTI images acquired pre operatively diminishes because of brain shift therefore rendering it less reliable when incorporated into the intra-operative MRI. Task based fMRIs are limited in patients who are uncooperative, with speech problems or young patients. Preoperative and intraoperative resting fMRI may be a good option to have an accurate registration of the functional areas to further achieved maximal safe resection.

Epifanio Bagarinao

Brain & Mind Research Center, Nagoya University, Japan

Title: Real-Time Functional MRI and Neurofeedback

Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has enabled the real-time measurement and analysis of ongoing brain activity using the BOLD signal. Coupled with machine learning techniques, real-time fMRI could enable the identification of different brain states during fMRI scans in real-time, which could then be used to provide feedback information to the participants or could be translated as control signals for brain-machine interfaces (BMI). In this presentation, I will explore the application of real-time fMRI in neurofeedback training, a self-modulation method to efficiently control mental training by providing feedback signals directly derived from the measured brain activity.

Eric Tatt Wei Ho

Center for Intelligent Signal and Imaging Research, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia

Title: Deep learning AI assisted neuroimaging analysis

As our understanding of brain function and dysfunction evolves towards specifying the interactions within and between brain networks, new modeling concepts are required to keep pace with the complexity of analysis. This talk will explore potential applications of deep learning artificial intelligence to assist analysis of neuroimaging datasets with high dimensionality. Specifically, i will discuss 2 preliminary applications of deep learning towards the comparison and comprehension of brain structure and functional brain networks.

Closing Session

Ha Thi Thanh Huong

Lecturer, Biomedical Engineering Department, International University, Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Title: Brain Aging in Vietnam: Society needs and research approach

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of neurodegeneration with no cure and has severe impact to patient’s life quality. More importantly, there is no available optimal method for diagnosing AD to guide treatment or intervention. Having a rapidly aging population, Vietnam is facing with increasing burden of neurodegenerative diseases. The societal needs related to neurodegenerative disorders in Vietnam and the main research approaches undertaken by our team to address such needs will be discussed in this talk.