The 2021 MidBrains conference will be a virtual event held on Saturday, October 23rd.
This year, given the pandemic context, we are partnering to host a joint virtual meeting with another regional undergraduate neuroscience conference, the Midwest/Great Lakes Undergraduate Symposium in Neuroscience (mGluRs).
Our conference site on Gather is available! This platform is browser-based and combines videoconferencing with virtual interactions/transitions. You can try it out before the conference to become familiar with the platform and our space. The space is live at full capacity on Friday 10/22 at 5:00pm Central Daylight Time (CDT); if you attempt to join the platform before this time and are not able to join, try joining again later/after this time. Gather recommends using the platform in a browser on a desktop/laptop computer (limited mobile capacity). Here is a support article on using Gather: https://support.gather.town/help/movement-and-basics
1) Conference site
2) Conference booklet PDF = updated
Our time together begins Saturday at 9:00am CDT in the Keynote + Panel Discussions Room; this space uses a Zoom call to accommodate all attendees together (download/install Zoom on your computer) – press “x” in that room and sign into Zoom to start the day. See you there!
Finalized schedule
| Time (CDT) | Scheduled Event(s) |
| 9:00am-9:15am | Welcome and announcements |
| 9:15am-10:15am | Keynote Address |
| 10:15am-10:30am | Break |
| 10:30am-11:15am | Poster session + grad fair #1 |
| 11:15am-12:15pm | Graduate Program panel |
| 12:15pm-1:00pm | Break (lunch) |
| 1:00pm-2:00pm | Symposium sessions (graduate program research talks), Faculty meetings |
| 2:00pm-3:00pm | Neuroscience career panel |
| 3:00pm-3:15pm | Break |
| 3:15pm-4:00pm | Poster session + grad fair #2 |
| 4:05pm-4:15pm | Send off |
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Damien Fair from the University of Minnesota will be delivering the keynote address at MidBrians-mGluRs 2021!
Title: USING GRAPH THEORY TO INFORM HETEROGENEITY IN TYPICAL AND ATYPICAL DEVELOPMENT
Research in psychiatry often relies on the assumption that the diagnostic categories identified in the DSM represent homogeneous syndromes. However, the mechanistic heterogeneity that potentially underlies the existing classification scheme might limit discovery of etiology. In our current work we expand on previous brain imaging methods and use graph theory, specifically community detection, to clarifying behavioral and functional heterogeneity in children with ADHD and Autism. We have been able to identify several unique subgroups of children within these disorders, and importantly, in some cases, in control populations as well. Just as notably, we also show in these longitudinal samples that this refined nosology is capable of improving our predictive capacity of long-term outcomes relative to current DSM-based nosology. We argue that illumination of such phenomena will have significant practical importance for understanding typical development and to identifying the etiologic underpinnings of atypical developmental trajectories.
See his laboratory website here: https://innovation.umn.edu/developmental-cognition-and-neuroimaging-lab/
See Dr. Fair’s MacArthur profile here: https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2020/damien-fair
Register and submit poster abstracts HERE