Webinars
Launched in 2020, the Brainbox Initiative Webinar Series is a free resource designed to stimulate the ongoing discussion and promotion of the fascinating work being carried out in the field of non-invasive brain stimulation and imaging research. Our webinars are hosted by a global range of guest speakers from academia and industry alike to provide a broad, accessible, and engaging series of talks and discussions that is open to everyone. We will continue to add further webinars to this series over time, so make sure to check back here and on our YouTube channel to ensure that you don’t miss any talks.
Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation: A Cutting-Edge Approach To Neural Circuit Exploration
Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS) is a novel, noninvasive technique capable of stimulating both cortical and deep brain structures with high spatial precision. In this webinar, Professor Takahiro Osada will discuss the mechanisms underlying TUS, its safety considerations, and its applications in human studies.
This webinar will highlight the modulation of motor cortex excitability through TUS, the role of the basal ganglia in response inhibition, and the macroscopic cerebral circuits involved in response inhibition, spanning perceptual to control processing. The integral approach, combining TUS and neuroimaging, demonstrates the potential of TUS to advance our understanding of cortical and subcortical networks.
Speaker: Dr Takahiro Osada
Dr Takahiro Osada is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurophysiology at Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan. He earned his Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Tokyo. His research interests encompass human cognitive functions and the autonomic nervous system, utilizing neuroimaging and noninvasive brain stimulation techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). In recent years, he has expanded his work to include Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS), a cutting-edge technique for noninvasively targeting both cortical and deep brain structures. He received the Promotion Award for Young Scientists from The Physiological Society of Japan in 2022.
Does Microstructure Alter Rapidly After rTMS? Evidence From Quadripulse Stimulation
Several studies have reported immediate microstructural changes in the human brain following behavioural training. However, it remains unclear whether such changes occur after repetitive stimulation of a single brain region using repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS). This is challenged by the large inter-individual variability in rTMS after-effect, while this knowledge is crucial for clarifying the mechanism of rTMS.
In this webinar, Dr Ikko Kimura will present the recently published study investigating the immediate microstructural effects of quadri-pulse stimulation (QPS), a patterned rTMS protocol known for inducing relatively strong and robust after-effects.
Speaker: Dr Ikko Kimura
Dr Ikko Kimura specialises in neuromodulation and neuroimaging. He has completed his his clinical residency at Osaka University Hospital and earned a PhD in Science from Osaka University. Dr Kimura then joined the RIKEN Institute as a Special Postdoctoral Researcher, where he advanced neuroimaging methods, particularly for high-resolution laminar MRI.
Currently, Dr Kimura is a postdoctoral researcher at the Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR) at Copenhagen University Hospital - Amager and Hvidovre, where he focuses on simulating the after-effects of transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) to optimize neuromodulation therapies.
Past webinars
You can find below our full range of past Brainbox Initiative Webinars, available for you to view on demand. We work closely will all of our speakers to ensure that we bring as much of this content to you as possible, and we will continue to keep this page updated as we bring more webinars into the range.
