LOS ANGELES, March 23, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- World leading scientists gathered at the LA Convention Center from March 6-8 for a marathon scientific presentation. 600 presentations in 110 scientific sessions covered recent advances in ALS, Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's Disease, brain cancers, spine disorders, psychiatric disorders, autism, depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, brain trauma, space medicine, epilepsy, vascular disorders, stroke, stem cell, neuro-mathematics, bio-material and tissue engineering, multi-modality imaging, epigenetic and genomic of brain disorders, brain bionics, minimally invasive therapy, focus ultrasound, microgravity, supercomputing and big-data, virtual reality medicine, NIH and DARPA funding, nanoneuroscience and nanoneurosurgery, neurovascular disorders, biomarkers, pediatric neurosurgery, dementia, brain bank, brain ablation, Neuro-ophthalmology, neuro-oncology, radiation physics, neurophotonics, peripheral never therapy, deep brain stimulation, brain health and fitness, NASA technologies, Los Alamos National Lab and brain policy and ethics. Winthrop University Hospital designates this world class scientific program for a maximum of 13.5 AMA PRA category 1 CME credits.

The preparation for the program started 18 months ago including near 100 members of the scientific program committee from 50 universities and near 40 scientists from NASA and Los Alamos National Lab presenting their advanced technologies at the meeting. The Honorable Congressman Chaka Fattah delivered the opening keynote at the LA Convention Center stating that "you would not find this type of diversity geographically and otherwise in any other great organizations that are gathering."

The annual SBMT World Congress is a multidisciplinary forum designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary dissemination of technological and medical advances and scientific discovery. The SBMT World congress has brought together neurosurgeons, radiologists, neurologists, neuro-oncologists, psychiatrists, bioethicists, policy makers, government officials, engineers, physicists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, allied healthcare professionals, healthcare executives, students, post-docs, residents and fellows. SBMT's annual meetings are world class scientific events designed to have a significant impact on cross-disciplinary flow of information and scientific advancements.

"We had the largest numbers of keynote and presenters in this convention, which was truly started as an spinoff collaboration between me and Dr. Kateb 13 years ago with 10 speakers and few people in the audience; since then we have published numerous papers showing latest technology could indeed helpful in diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders and now we have ongoing clinical trials," said Dr. Shouleh Nikzad, immediate past President of SBMT, Senior Research Scientist, Principal Member of Staff, Technical Supervisor and Lead, Advanced UV/Vis/NIR Detector Arrays and Imaging Systems, and Nanoscience Group, Lead, Strategic Initiative on Gigapixel Focal Plane Arrays, Deputy Lead, Advanced Imaging Systems, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

In recent years, astonishing advances have contributed to amazing discoveries and breakthroughs in fields of neurology, neuroscience, neurosurgery, radiology, engineering, computer science, nanotechnology, medical imaging, medical devices and cellular/stem cell therapy. These scientific advances also have contributed to the large gap of knowledge amongst the scientists in different disciplines. One of the major challenges of 21st century for the scientific community is how to close such gaps of knowledge amongst multiple disciplines. SBMT has designed and created G20 World Brain Mapping and Therapeutic Initiative and African Brain Mapping Initiative to address such challenges at the global level by bringing together world class experts across multiple disciplines.

"SBMT is now a global leader in brain mapping and therapeutics by introducing modern and game changing initiatives such as G20 and African Brain Mapping Initiative; The organization has been on the forefront of translational neuroscience," Said Dr. John Ouma, the new President of SBMT (2015-2016), Chairman of Neurosurgery at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

This year's program had 10 keynote speakers including: Congressman Fattah, Dr./Rear Admiral Raquel Bono, Drs. Keith L. Black (Chairman of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center), Nancy Sauer (Deputy Director of Los Alamos National Lab), Jakob Van Zyl (Associate Director of Project Formulation-NASA/JPL), Michael W Weiner (Professor of Radiology, Medicine and Psychiatry at UCSF), Morteza Gharib (Vice Provost of Caltech), Jaimie Henderson (Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at Stanford University), Skip Rizzo (Director of Medical Virtual Reality at USC) and Douglas Davis (Vice President of Intel) as well as Mitch Berger (Chairman of Department of Neurosurgery at UCSF) who was the first Ferenc A. Jolesz Memorial lecturer.

The Society and the Brain Mapping Foundation annually award leaders, philanthropists and pioneers in the field were honored this year.

Professor Stephen Hawking (Beacon of Courage and Dedication Award) for his clear beacon status, for publicly and courageously living with ALS and monumentally contributing to our understanding of the universe and thereby raising public awareness about the ALS.

Professor Hawking said, "SBMT's approach is bold and innovative as it takes advantage of talents and diversity of approach in various disciplines"

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The Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) hits its high notes for its 12th Annual meeting bringing Los ...