Shiraz Neuroscience Research Center

The “Brain Awareness Week” was held by the Shiraz Neuroscience Research Center during March 24-28, 2018 in Shiraz, Iran with the theme “Healthy Lifestyle for Brain and Spinal Cord”. The main programs held in this week were: 1) A 4 days’ workshop and exhibition for students. Five stations had been considered for the participants. In the first station, psychophysical knowledge was described and then the participants became acquainted with some brain and cognitive tests. At the 2nd station the participants became familiar with electroencephalography (EEG) device which is used for recording the signals and analyzing the frequency bands. At the 3rd station, neurofeedback was introduced and the participants became familiar with the applications of this technology in the treatment and cognitive rehabilitation. At the 4th station, the visitors simply became familiar with a human-machine communication system. An experiment had been designed in which by receiving the signals from a muscle by a single-channel EMG module, a message was sent to a robotic arm so that by opening the hand fingers, the robotic arm opened and closed the hand fingers. At the 5th station, the students became familiar with transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) and its applications. At the end of the program for each group of the students, the rat brain was dissected by a neuropharmacologist, and different parts of its anatomy were shown and described to the students. 2) Lectures for the Chamran Hospital nurses in Shiraz, 3) A television show with “Brain and Spinal Cord” theme, and 4) Lectures with questions and answers for the teachers of high schools in the Fars province on modern medical issues, neurotechnology, and Alzheimer’s disease.