"Physical, Engineering and Biological Limits to Brain Measurements" hosted by the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, May 30-31, 2014

由芝加哥大学主办的为期三天的研讨会“大脑测量的物理、工程和生物限制”将于2014年5月29日至31日举行，届时将汇集来自物理学、计算科学、生物学和网络理论的研究人员，讨论脑科学的基础和该领域最新的方法发展。这次会议的灵感部分来自于围绕BRAIN计划正在进行的讨论，该计划旨在开发新技术和工具，帮助我们了解大脑是如何工作的，并在工程和医学领域取得革命性进展。讨论的一个重要部分将是如何在脑相关实验中大幅提高空间和时间分辨率，小型化，探针或致动器的数量等。其中一个将要讨论的问题是物理学（例如，电学、光学和无线方法不能违反麦克斯韦方程）、工程和材料科学以及生物学（例如，不能通过消耗过多的能量来使大脑过热）设定的基本限制。会议将召集执业专家对这些限制进行系统讨论，形成一份书面文件，可以广泛传播，以帮助各方了解问题，划定可能/不可能的界限，并指出需要进一步研究的领域。这是一个小型的、重点突出的会议，大约有30名与会者，整个小组在会议期间参加一次会议。会议将依次讨论麦克斯韦方程的不同频率范围（低频脑电图/脑磁图、核磁共振、有线/无线、光学和x射线），并讨论电子显微镜、跨频率范围的一般框架以及统计/逆问题。青年科学家将有机会与该领域的资深研究人员互动。

The three-day workshop "Physical, Engineering and Biological Limits to Brain Measurements" hosted by the University of Chicago on May 29-31, 2014 will bring together researchers from physics, computational science, biology, and network theory to discuss the foundations of brain science and recent methodological developments in the field. The meeting is inspired in part by ongoing discussions surrounding the BRAIN initiative about the development of new technologies and tools that will help us understand how the brain works and make transformative progress in engineering and medicine. An important part of the discussion will be how to substantially improve the spatial and temporal resolution, miniaturization, numbers of probes or actuators, etc. in brain related experiments. One of the questions that will be discussed is the fundamental limits set by physics (e.g. electrical, optical and wireless methods cannot violate Maxwell's equations), engineering and material science, and from biology (e.g. one cannot over-heat the brain by dissipating too much power). The meeting will bring together practicing experts to have a systematic discussion about these limits, resulting in a written document that can be broadly disseminated to help different parties in understanding the issues, to delineate possible/impossible boundaries and to point to areas requiring further research. This is a small, focused meeting with approximately 30 participants, with a single session attended by the whole group over the meeting period. The meeting will constitute sequential discussions of the different frequency ranges of the Maxwell's equation (EEG/MEG at low frequencies, MRI, wired/wireless, optical, and x-ray), with additional segments on electron microscopy, on a general framework spanning the frequency ranges, and statistics/inverse problems. Young scientists will have the opportunity to interact with the senior investigators in the field.