At present, we intend to host the 4th International Brain Stimulation Conference according to COVID-secure guidelines onsite in Kyoto, Japan, December 7–10 December 2021 to best facilitate in-person networking and learning.

However, as the future situation regarding international travel remains uncertain, we have the option to switch to our fully interactive online conference platform should the need arise.

Rest assured that we will refund your onsite registration fee, with no penalty should you wish to cancel during the uncertainty of the outbreak.

The field of brain stimulation continues to undergo remarkable growth. Brain stimulation methods are rapidly transforming research on brain mechanisms, from the molecular to the behavioral, and offer new approaches to therapeutics for brain disorders. In many ways, the field of brain stimulation represents a paradigm shift, augmenting and sometimes supplanting the dominant psychopharmacological approaches of the past several decades.

Currently, there are single theme meetings around the world that that are either technique or profession based or that limit the science of neuromodulation in other ways. This fourth international meeting, organized by Elsevier and sponsored by and integrated with the journal Brain Stimulation, continues in the tradition of the prior highly successful meetings – the first meeting was held in Singapore in 2015, then, Barcelona in 2017 and most recently Vancouver in 2019. Thus, this will be the 4th International Brain Stimulation Conference, returning to Asia and integrating all the various groups and disciplines involved in this exciting field. This special meeting will occur in the remarkable Kyoto International Conference Center, site of the 1997 Convention on Climate Change. Charming and beautiful, Kyoto was for a millennium the center of Japanese power, religion and culture, and is still the ‘mystical city of a thousand temples.’

This meeting will continue the successful multidisciplinary broad approach of the prior meetings. Basic scientists will attend lectures by engineers and psychiatrists. Cognitive neuroscientists will mingle with neurosurgeons and brain modelling physicists. This fertile cross-disciplinary meeting will provide opportunity to discuss the science that is driving advances in this field.

Topics will include:

Animal models
Closed-loop or responsive stimulation
Combining brain stimulation methods with brain imaging
Computer modeling of brain stimulation methods
Deep brain stimulation (DBS)
EEG-synchronization
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
Focal pharmacology
Neuronavigation
Neurophysiology
Novel neuromodulation techniques
Plasticity of the nervous system
Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS)
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Transcranial pulsed ultrasound (tPUS)
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS)
Basic neuroscience
Clinical neurological applications
Clinical psychiatric applications
Cognitive and affective neuroscience