You are here

Home

Neurosur 2021 Symposium: national and international leading-edge research in Neuroscience

The activity started from a collaboration between researchers from University of Santiago (USACH), University of Chile, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University and the Picower Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which has among its objectives to update latest generation tools for the study of the human brain in the presence of the neuroscientific community, graduate and undergraduate students and academics.

Between April 5th and 8th, through Zoom platform, the Scientific Symposium “Neurosur 2021” was carried out, an international scientific event that had more than 900 participants and 16 national and international panelists renowned in the field of neuroscience from the United States, Canada and Chile. Among the international institutions that were present were the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard Medical School and the University of Toronto.

Neurosur is a scientific initiative that has been developing since 2012, and this year it was born from a collaboration between researchers from the Biomedical Neuroscience Institute (BNI) of the University of Chile, University of Santiago (USACH), Harvard Medical School of Harvard University and the Picower Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In addition, it has the support of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative (MISTI), the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS of Harvard University), and the REDES initiative of the National Research and Development Agency (ANID).

Among its objectives, the symposium seeks to update and make known latest generation tools for the study of the human brain to the entire neuroscientific community, to undergraduate and graduate students as well as academics.

Dr. Juan Manuel Zolezzi, the rector of the University of Santiago of Chile, participated along with other authorities in the opening symposium named "Memory, from the molecule to behavior", an opportunity in which he valued the initiative and claimed that, as a state and public institution, "our purpose is to create, preserve, spread and apply knowledge for the welfare of society through teaching, research and connection with society."

Additionally, Claudio Hetz, director of the Biomedical Neuroscience Institute (BNI) of the University of Chile, highlighted: “We are very happy to carry out Neurosur in these particular conditions, as an opportunity to strengthen the quality of scientific research and its technological basis, through alliances between institutes and neuroscience research centers with a Latin American focus. This event aims to improve the visibility of regional neuroscience and to take position as a scientific beacon that foments collaboration in the Southern Cone”.

 

The representative of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative (MISTI) program, which collaborated in the framework of Fondo Semilla USACH-MIT, also gave a few words: “Since 2011, the USACH-MIT program has been the bridge to facilitate the collaboration of more than 150 scientists from Chilean universities, with a similar number of scientists from MIT. An important result is that researchers from both countries have widen their scientific networks and have continued collaborations beyond the formal aspects”, underlined Eduardo Rivera, director of the program.

This year, besides the symposium, a third version of the workshop "Tools and analysis in electrophysiological signals" will be carried out between April 12th and 15th, in which 25 students from Latin America will participate. In the workshop there will be experts from various national and international universities and with the sponsorship of the Mathworks company, who will provide the computational tools to carry out this second part of the event.

To review the presentations in detail: http://bni.cl/neurosur2021/, the videos of the sessions are available on YouTube @Usach Internacional.