The 2010 International Brain Bee Championship

The 2010 International Brain Bee Championship will be held in association with the American Psychological Association's Annual Convention. The meeting is in San Diego, California August 12-15, 2010. The IBB Championship will involve five sections of competition, and the maximum score is 100 points.

Human Neuroanatomy Practical (25%). This involves competitors rotating through stations consisting of whole and half human brains. Parts of the brains are labeled with pins numbered from 1 to 25. Students must recall the names and/or functions of the indicated parts and write them on their answer sheets. Students can prepare by studying any basic neuroanatomy or neurophysiology textbook or atlas.    

Questions with Written Answers Part 1 (25%). Competitors will be given the same 25 questions orally one at a time. They will have 15 seconds to write the answers on a pad given to them. At the end of the 15 seconds, they will each read their answers out load. Students can prepare by studying Neuroscience: the Science of the Brain (2003)

Patient Diagnosis (20%) Students will spend 5 minutes alone with each of 10 patient actors. By observing them, asking them 3 questions, and ordering 2 laboratory or clinical tests they are to diagnose the patient’s neurological disorder, choosing from one of the following 12 disorders: bipolar disorder, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, schizophrenia, stroke, Tourette Syndrome, neurological AIDS, chronic pain, and autism. Patients are only allowed to answer “yes”, “no” or “I don’t know” to the 3 questions. Students will select from a list of tests and will immediately be given the results to help their diagnosis. Students can prepare by studying the basic signs, symptoms and diagnostic procedures for these disorders.

Neurohistology (5%) This involves competitors rotating through stations consisting of histological sections of the brain and nervous system. Students must be able to recall the names of indicated cells and parts of the nervous system. Students can prepare by studying any basic neurohistology text book. All histological sections will be of structions mentioned in Brain Facts

Questions with Written Answers Part 2 (25%) Ten rounds of different questions are asked of each student. They require a one word or phrase answer. Students can prepare by studying Neuroscience: the Science of the Brain (2003)

Note: The five parts may not be in the order presented above. Details of each part may change depending on local circumstances and availability of resources. There will not be a group competition or a written multiple-choice exam this year.

Once a National Championship has been determined, the competitor's information should be sent to Dr. Norbert Myslinski using this form. Once the registration form and fee are received, more information about the IBB Championship will be dispersed!

The 2009 International Brain Bee Championship

Congratulations to Julia Chartove of the United States, the new 2009 International Brain Bee Champion.  The Brain Bee is a neuroscience competition for high school students. It tests one’s knowledge of brain functions, brain disorders and brain research by way of oral questions, anatomy laboratories and patient diagnosis with student actors. Second place went to Casey Linton of Australia, and third to Nidhi Ramary of India. Each of the three countries started with about 10,000 students who competed in local competitions. Those winners then competed in their respective National Championships to determine the one student that represented their country in the Eleventh International Championship.

Julia goes to Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, MD. Her local Brain Bee was sponsored by the Dana Alliance, and her National Championship was sponsored by the University of Maryland. The 2009 IBB Championship sponsors included The Nimmagadda Foundation, the International Brain Research Organization, the American Psychological Association and The Society for Neuroscience.

Fourth place went to Stephen Mackereth of New Zealand. Fifth to Sean Amodeo of Canada. Sixth to Smaranda of Romania. And seventh to Wampaalu Peter Balyawula of Uganda. Other National Brain Bee Champions who were not able to compete were Makalani Manwarring of Grenada, Sylvia Kaloki of Kenya and Nazan Akaun of Turkey. Two separate additional contests were Neurohistology Identification won by India, and Brain Assembly won by New Zealand.

The IBB Championship was held in Toronto, Canada where it received coverage by local and national TV, live radio interviews and many articles in the press. The competition was held in conjunction with the annual convention of the American Psychological Association. The APA President, James H. Bray, honored the competitors at the opening ceremony and presented the awards to the winner at the end of the convention. The APA graduate students conducted the Patient Diagnosis component and the University of Toronto Medical School hosted the anatomy laboratory component.

The judges included Drs. Jonathan Dostrovsky, Isabelle Aubert and Anurag Tandon of the University of Toronto; Dr. Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia; Dr. Raymond DiGiuseppe of St. John’s University; Dr. Ahmad Hariri of the University of Pittsburgh; and Dr. Terrence Keene of VA Boston Health Care.  Jessie McGrattan and Patricia Sasse of the University of Maryland were presented with Brain Bee Leadership Awards.
The founder of the Brain Bee Competition is Dr. Norbert Myslinski of the Department of Neural and Pain Sciences of the University of Maryland Dental School. Professor Myslinski states that “The purpose of the IBB is to motivate young men and women to learn about the human brain and to inspire them to consider careers in the basic and clinical neurosciences so that we can treat and find cures for the hundreds of neurological and psychological disorders.”

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