First OHBM Online Satellite Meeting 2025
In September 2025, SEA-SIG co-organised the first OHBM online conference to explore ways of connecting and sharing research outside of the annual meeting, while also reducing our carbon footprint. This 3-day event featured an educational course, a keynote lecture, three symposia, and a Special Interest Groups showcase.
On the first day, Dr. Nicolás Nieto, Vera Komeyer, and Dr. Kaustubh R. Patil hosted an educational course ‘Navigating machine learning pitfalls and explainability in brain-behavioral predictive modeling’, providing attendees with a theoretical background in machine learning and hands-on exercises in its application to neuroimaging research.
The second day began with a keynote lecture from Professor Michael Breakspear, who presented a computational model, a so-called ‘hippocampal wave machine’, showing how travelling waves can arise within the hippocampus. In light of the meeting’s environmentally-conscious theme, the talk also covered aspects of his climate activism, including participating in the annual ‘Rising Tide’ blockade of the Port of Newcastle.
Our first symposium session Targeted brain stimulation enables selective modulation of neural circuits, covered the talks by Dr. Jianxun Ren on ‘Personalized functional circuit-guided neuromodulation in Parkinson’s disease’, Prince Okyere, who presented ‘Targeted non-invasive stimulation of the hippocampus to shape memory function’ and Dr. Zhuoran Li, showcasing ‘Multimodal evidence for hippocampal engagement and modulation by functional connectivity-guided parietal transcranial magnetic stimulation’.
Dr. Marie-Constance Corsi and Professor Pierpaolo Sorrentino hosted a second symposium of the meeting, entitled ‘Brain models as a tool for a multimodal integration’ , where Dr. Damien Depannemaecker talked about ‘Modeling mechanisms of brain functioning: Example of a neural mass model with neuromodulation’, Prof. Sorrentino was ‘Exploring brain models and inversion techniques: Bridging data and pathophysiology’, Dr. Gian Marco Duma presented his talk on ‘Multimodal neurobiological features to inform whole-brain models for clinical populations’, and Dr. Corsi concluded with a talk on ‘Integrating MEG and EEG signals to improve and understand brain computer interfaces’.
Our last symposium featured talks on the topic of ‘Rigor, Pitfalls and Challenges in Neuroimaging: A Causal Thinking Perspective and Applications’. Dr. Gang Chen gave a talk on ‘Resting-state fMRI and the risk of overinterpretation: Noise, mechanisms, and a missing Rosetta stone.’ Dr. Andrew Vigotsky talked about ‘Pitfalls and fallacies of decoding for causal inference in fMRI’, and Dr. Chifaou Abdallah presented ‘Determinants of epilepsy surgery outcomes after stereo-electroencephalography: A Bayesian causal inference approach.’
You can read more about the content of the talks in the Aperture Neuro journal.
We are looking forward to the next OHBM Satellite meeting in September 2026. Stay tuned!