Virtual fNIRS Training Course 2021
Two weeks of virtual content from leading fNIRS scientists and NIRx’ consultant team
Monday January 25th 2021 – Friday February 6th 2021
Welcome to the information page of the virtual fNIRS training course. Below you will find details about the schedule and speakers. Feel free to send any further questions you might have to events@nirx.net.
This training course will provide a solid foundation for early to mid-career academic researchers wishing to implement fNIRS technology within their own research explorations. This event will give attendees a thorough understanding of how to run a successful fNIRS experiment from selecting hypotheses and designing experiments, to analyzing results and publication.
Schedule
Main sessions:
Held Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10 am EST/4 pm CET by selected speakers, see details below.
Tutorials and Office Hours:
Held Tuesday and Thursdays twice a day, at 9 am CET and 4 pm EST only by NIRx support consultants.
Speakers
Keynote Speech
Dr. João Ricardo Sato ∙ Associate Professor, UFABC, Brazil
NIRx is honored to have Dr. Sato presenting his background and his transition to working with fNIRS from fMRI. He will also discuss fNIRS studies in naturalistic environments, and the future of the field.
+ Biography of Dr. João Ricardo Sato
João Ricardo Sato is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of the Region of ABC-Brazil. For five years, he was coordinator of the Center for Cognition and Complex Systems, a strategic unit that aims to carry out activities in interdisciplinary teams focused on research, teaching and community extension in the area of neuroscience and cognition. His current line of research is interaction between neurosciences and technology, with a primary focus on education, neurodevelopment, neural bases of psychiatric disorders, brain connectivity, artificial intelligence, and neural signal processing. He graduated in Statistics from the University of Sao Paulo in 2002. In his doctorate that began in 2004, he decided to focus his research on the development of new statistical methods to model brain connectivity using functional magnetic resonance signals. In 2006, he did a research internship at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, where he integrated machine learning techniques into his research. In January 2009, he was hired by UFABC for the position of assistant professor at the Center for Mathematics, Computing and Cognition. In July 2009 he became the coordinator of the Center for Cognition and Complex Systems (NCSC). He is currently the coordinator of the Nucleus of Applied Neuroscience at the Federal University of the Region of ABC.
Dr. Pinti will begin her talk discussing fNIRS preprocessing methods. She will then cover common approaches to fNIRS analysis, including block averaging, the general linear model and functional connectivity.
+ Biography of Dr. Paola Pinti
Dr. Paola Pinti is a Senior Research Laboratory Developer at Birkbeck College, London, UK and previously a Research Associate in the Biomedical Optics Research Laboratory in the Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at University College London. Her research involves the use of fNIRS in the field of cognitive neuroscience and, in particular, of the new generation of wireless and wearable fNIRS devices in naturalistic environments. More precisely, her work focuses on the development and implementation of new algorithms and tools for the analysis of fNIRS data. Her current role involves the development of a new ToddlerLab that integrates cutting-edge wearable technologies like fNIRS, EEG, motion capture, eye-tracking in an immersive Virtual Reality environment for the study brain development in ecological settings.
fNIRS Anatomy
Dr. Sabrina Brigadoi ∙ Assistant Professor, University of Padova, Italy
Dr. Brigadoi will give a presentation on optimal probe placement: Atlas tools, ROI analysis and automatic array design software.
+ Biography of Dr. Sabrina Brigadoi
Dr. Sabrina Brigadoi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology at the University of Padova. She received her master degree in Bioengineering in 2010 and then her PhD in Psychological Science in 2014 both from the University of Padova. During her PhD, she visited both the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in Boston and University College London (UCL), working on signal processing techniques and neonatal atlases for fNIRS applications. She worked for one year as Research Associate at UCL, before coming back as post-doctoral fellow at the University of Padova, working on advances in fNIRS and performing cognitive studies in infants and adults. In 2018 she won a starting grant from the University of Padova, to study the relation between glycemic changes and brain oxygenation changes in very preterm neonates. Dr. Brigadoi’s research activity covers a broad range of topics, both methodological and neuroscientific, most of them related to the development and application of optical techniques to study human brain development, brain functions and its pathological alterations.
fNIRS Paradigms
Dr. Simone Cutini ∙ Associate Professor, University of Padova, Italy
Dr. Cutini will discuss the key concepts in designing an fNIRS paradigm. This will include stimulus timing & statistical efficiency and controlling for confounds in cognitive tasks.
+ Biography of Dr. Simone Cutini
Dr. Simone Cutini is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Padova in Italy where he also conducted his Doctoral, and Post-Doctoral theses. His research relates to the use of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) methodology primarily in cognitive neuroscience, yet investigations extend also to probe placement and signal processing methods. Of particular interest is investigating the neural correlates of executive functions, cognitive control, visuo-spatial attention, numerical cognition and visual short-term memory.
Experimental Design Examples
Dr. Jessica Gemignani ∙ Postdoctoral Researcher, Université Paris Descartes
Dr. Jessica Gemignani will present on the inclusion of 2nd level covariates in fNIRS studies to better explain observed variance.
+ Biography of Dr. Jessica Gemignani
Dr. Jessica Gemignani received her master's degree in Biomedical Engineering from University of Pisa, Italy and her Ph.D in Neurotechnology at the Technische Universität Berlin, while working at NIRx Medical Technologies as a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher, under the ITN "PredictAble". There she researched how to improve the techniques for the pre-processing and the statistical analysis of fNIRS data, also with the use of machine learning algorithms. She is now a post-doctoral researcher with Judit Gervain at the Université Paris Descartes, France, and is currently continuing working on fNIRS analysis issues with a focus on newborns' data.
Publishing an fNIRS Paper
Dr. Noman Naseer ∙ Assistant Professor, AIR University, Pakistan
Dr. Noman Naseer, a leader in his field with an extensive history of publication, will give an overview of leading fNIRS journals and discuss reviewer expectations regarding methods & results.
+ Biography of Dr. Noman Naseer
Dr. Noman Naseer obtained his Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. all in Mechatronics Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Cogno-Mechatronics Engineering at Pusan National University, South Korea, supported by the World Class University Program. Dr. Naseer has published 45 peer-reviewed papers receiving more than 600 citations from all around the globe. He served as a reviewer for more than 36 ISI Indexed journals and is currently serving as the associate editor of three ISI Indexed journals. His contributions in the field of functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based brain-computer interfaces is extensive, and his biography was featured in the 32nd edition of Who’s who in the world, Berkeley, USA as a notable international researcher. Dr. Naseer was selected as a Marie-Curie Post-Doctorate fellow. Currently, he is associated with the Department of Mechatronics Engineering at Air University, Islamabad where he is heading the Neurorobotics Research Group. His current research interests include: Brain-Robot interfacing, robotics, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, non-linear control systems and machine vision.
Meeting Hosting and Resources
All sessions will be hosted on GoToWebinar, attendees will receive links before the sessions via email. NIRx will provide resources (recorded videos, webinars, etc.) leading up to the workshop; these resources will address background knowledge considerations and facilitate the overall flow of the event. Attendees to be given access preparatory material 2 weeks ahead of course start date.
All are welcomed to attend, but please note, those in attendance should have some proficiency in research methods and statistics. The cost of attending this year’s workshop is $200. We do wish to offer accessibility to all who wish to participate, especially in light of current economic conditions. Should you require a discounted attendance rate, please reach out to us at events@nirx.net.
About fNIRS & NIRx
NIRx has established itself as a leading provider of research solutions for near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). At NIRx, we design and manufacture innovative NIRS devices and software. We integrate devices, software, and more into user-friendly and powerful research solutions. Our team of scientific consultants focuses on providing you and your team with training and outstanding support so you can focus on your research. Our fNIRS solutions are invented, designed, and manufactured in Berlin Germany, supported by an international team of scientists in Europe and North America, and distributed by a network of excellent local distributors worldwide. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to us on the channels below.