A conference, neuroimaging, and the wealth of computational neuroscience
I was fortunate in being able to attend 18th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM2012). It was a nice turnout, especially considering the long distances many of the attendees traveled to attend the conference in Beijing. Very exciting was the record number of Chinese delegates, a trend the organization would like to see continue in the future.
For me, this year was year of the resting state brain. There was an Educational Course and an Oral session devoted to resting state networks, a strong showing of posters, and a number of good talks on this topic in other sessions and workshops that were not strictly “resting state” series. The energy and ideas floating around the OHBM conference last week suggest that it’s going to be a growing area in the future as well.
Another personal highlight was the INCF dinner at OHBM2012. The group had an engaging discussion on the increasingly central role of methods development and neuroinformatics in both driving the field and in realizing the fuller potential neuroimaging research – a role that remains arguably underappreciated. It was great to meet JB Poline, an author in our launch issue, in person, and I also enjoyed hearing about Jack Van Horn’s recent work on Phineas Gage. While Van Horn did not present this work at OHBM2012, it might be of interest to our readers as it done using entirely “repurposed” data.
Next year’s meeting will be in Seattle, June 16th-20th. Mark your calendars!
