Iran's National Brain Mapping Lab held the 3rd Iranian Symposium on Brain Mapping Updates (ISBM 2019)

The 3rd Iranian Symposium on Brain Mapping Updates (ISBM 2019) was held on May 1 & 2, 2019, by National Brain Mapping Lab at the conference hall of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, and more than 500 researchers gathered around to talk about the latest updates on brain mapping. This symposium also involved three specialized Panels, workshops, seminars and spring meeting of Brain Mapping researchers.

As said by Dr. Mohammad Reza Ay, head of the ISBM 2019, this symposium's main goal was to converge, update, and enhance the knowledge of researchers who work in cognitive science, especially brain mapping. In order to motivate researchers and technicians for the localization of brain-mapping equipment and technologies, the 2nd Brain Research and Technology Festival was also held and provided the opportunity for knowledge-based companies to introduce their products and technologies to the researchers of this field.

The ISBM 2019 started at May the first, by a speech from Dr. Mohammad Reza Ay. In addition to pointing out to the main goals of the symposium and festival, Dr. Ay introduced the recent workshops, seminars, and new services that National Brain Mapping Lab can provide for researchers. Then Dr. Gholam Ali Hossein Zadeh, scientific director of the symposium, delivered his speech. After these, researchers who collaborate with NBML gathered around for spring meeting for 45 minutes, and the rest of speeches were as follows:

First day

• Dr. Hamed Ekhtiari (Methodological Parameter Space in Combining tES and fMRI: From Mechanism to Prediction)
• Dr. Reza Rostami (Efficacy and Clinical Predictors of Response to rTMS Treatment in Pharmaco-Resistant Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD))
• First panel (Clinical and research applications of brain stimulation)
• Dr. Reza Khosroabadi (Structural and Functional Differences in Neurodevelopmental Disorders)
• Dr. Mir Shahram Safari (How the serotonin system changes the function map of visual cortex?)
• Second panel (Clinical and research applications of brain signals )

Posters were also presented in two 15-minute sections between lectures.

At the end of the first day, the Second Annual Meeting of Directors and Members of Brain Mapping's Student Branch (NBMS) was held. Dr. Mohammad Reza Ay, Dr. Hosein Ghadiri, Dr. Abdolhosein Abasian, and Dr. Maryam Vaziri attended this event.

Second day:

• Dr. Fereshteh Motamedi (Application of fMRI in Neuroscience Research on Experimental Animals)
• Dr. Maryam Vaziri-Pashkam (Representation of Objects In the Human Dorsal and Ventral Visual Streams)
• Dr. Guive Sharifi (fMRI and DTI for Presurgical Brain Mapping: Complications and Applications)
• Third panel (Applications of brain mapping in presurgical decision making)
• Dr. Seyed Hamid Reza Naghavi (meaning as a basis for brain's architecture)
• Dr. Hamid Latifi (Optical Brain Imaging)
• Dr. Seyed-Mahdi Khaligh-Razavi (The Aging Brain Under Scrutiny: Employing Artificial Intelligence for Early Detection of Cognitive Impairment in Patients with Dementia)

As said before, the 2nd Brain Research and Technology Festival was also held simultaneously. 10 companies and institutes were participating in this festival and introduced their products and services to researchers.

At the end of the second day, the closing ceremony was held, along with the appreciation of companies participated in the festival, announcing the top articles and posters, and announcing the winners of the Second National fMRI Competition.

We are looking forward to meeting you at the 4th Symposium on Brain Mapping Updates, ISMB 2020.