DearIBROReturnHomeCommitteemembers2015.11.

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This is my 1st report as an IBRO return home fellowship (RHF). First I
would like to express my sincere appreciation to IBRO RHF committee
for supporting my career.
I received a RHF in 2015. I had several reasons for applying, mainly the
limitations of research resources in my home country (Iran) and I was
also interested in wining a competitive award in order to improve my
CV. I found out that IBRO is a unique supporting organization for
improving neuroscience in developing countries and I thought that
winning this award and establishing my laboratory in Iran would be a
good model for the next generation of Iranian neuroscientists abroad to
return to their home countries.
IBRO-RHF advanced my scientific career in different ways: it was
helpful in introducing me to the Iranian scientific community, it
supported me in finding my new position and it helped me equip my
laboratory.
I am now an assistant Professor in neuroscience at the research center
(NRC) Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences; I have a
laboratory named Laboratory for Dynamics of Cortical Circuits and
also an office at the NRC. I am doing research and teaching research
techniques, current concepts and techniques in multidisciplinary fields
such as vision science, optogenetics, neural network dynamics, brain
imaging and advanced electrophysiology and also some research related
to basic skills such as programming with MATLAB, LabView for postgraduate students in the NRC. At the moment I am collaborating with
several research centers in Iran and Tokyo, with the laser and plasma
research center of Shahid Beheshti University for developing laser tools
for optogenetics, with neurobiology research center for developing viral
vectors for optogenetics and with the faculty of computer science for
developing a new eye-tracking system. I am also still in collaboration

with Lab for Cortical Circuit Plasticity at RIKEN and I am also an

adviser for a research project at the University of Tokyo.
I think scientists of developing countries abroad have to fill a big
"technological and also conceptual gap" in current neuroscience research
between his/her countries and developed countries. We have very
talented and self-dedicated students in Iran, they are interested in the
latest and most challenging techniques and conceptual advancements but
unfortunately sometimes scientists that can lead projects in ground
breaking techniques and concepts are rare in developing countries. I
believe returning home will help to develop neuroscience in the world
more and I think it will enable us to find new talents. I also started to
introduce current neuroscience to people from my country and other
Persian speaking people in the world by establishing a scientific website
named neurosafari. Neurosafari.com got a lot of attention and has more
than 30 000 followers and readers on social networks and got Alexa
world rank of 143 000 in August 2015 (more than 21 000 visit per day on
average) which I think is great for a personal, non-English scientific
website.
During the past few months, I established my laboratory. My interest
concerning techniques is focused on optogenetics, in vivo patch-clamp
and two-photon imaging. Unfortunately grants have not been enough to
buy two-photon systems (but I am applying to get grants from another
funding agency), I established an in vivo patch-clamp set up for the first
time in Iran, with collaboration of other labs we started to do first
optogenetic and opto-patch experiments, I prepared a manuscript with
the collaboration of RIKEN (main data collected in RIKEN), this
manuscript will be submitted to the journal of "Science":
Fullarticle:
MirShahramSafari, Seyyed-Javad Mirnajafi-zadeh, Tadaharu
Tsumoto; Parvalbumin interneurons can act solo while somatostatin
interneurons act in chorus on cortical pyramidal cells, submitted to
science.

Invitedtalks:
MirShahramSafari,Optogenetic approaches for deciphering celltype specific inhibition of visual responses in primary visual cortex, 4nd
Basic and Clinical Neuroscience Congress, 23-25 Dec 2015, Tehran,
Iran.MirShahramSafari,"Shaping visual responses by cell typespecific inhibition in primary visual cortex", Faculty of Biology,
Ferdowsi University, 6 Dec 2015, Mashhad, Iran MirShahramSafari,
"Optogenetic and two-photon laser scanning microscopy approaches for
functional mouse brain mapping", 2nd Iranian Brain Mapping Congress,
14-16 Nov 2015, Tehran, Iran.
MirShahramSafari, "Inhibition in primary visual cortex from Brain
Activity Mapping" perspective, School of Advanced Technologies in
Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 28 Oct 2015, Tehran,
Iran.MirShahramSafari,"Cell type-specific inhibition in primary
visual cortex", Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Shahid
Beheshti University, 25 Oct 2015, Tehran, Iran.
MirShahramSafari,"Computational Neuroscience and beyond",
School of Computer Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, 21 Oct 2015,
Tehran, Iran.MirShahramSafari,"Shaping visual responses in primary
visual cortex through cell type- specific inhibition", Neuroscience
Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, 5 Oct
2015, Tehran, Iran.
MirShahramSafari,"Shaping visual responses in primary visual
cortex through cell-type specific inhibition", Institute for Advanced
Studies in Basic Science, 6 September 2015, Zanjan, Iran
MirShahramSafari,Inhibition in visual cortex, 9th annual symposium
of Academic Society of Iranians in Japan (ASIJ), 18-19 April 2015,
Tokyo, Japan.
Oralpresentations:MirShahramSafari,Tadaharu Tsumoto,

Functional connections from GABAergic to pyramidal neurons of the

mouse visual cortex in vivo, as revealed by double whole-cell recordings
combined with optogenetics, The 38th Annual Meeting of the Japan
Neuroscience Society, July 28-31, 2015, Kobe, Japan.MirShahram
Safariand Tadaharu Tsumoto; Quantitative analysis of inhibitory
functional connections from GABAergic to pyramidal neurons in the
mouse visual cortex, an in vivo double whole-cell recording study with
optogenetics; Bridging Biomedical Worlds: From Neural Circuitry to
Neurotechnology, May 11-12 2015, Tokyo, Japan.
Posterpresentation:MirShahramSafari,Tadaharu Tsumoto,
Functional connections from GABAergic to pyramidal neurons of the
mouse visual cortex in vivo, as revealed by double whole-cell recordings
combined with optogenetics, The 38th Annual Meeting of the Japan
Neuroscience Society, July 28-31, 2015, Kobe, Japan.
I have a great supporter in Iran, Professor Fereshteh Motamedi, director
of the Neuroscience Research Center, she is interested in supporting and
establishing new techniques and new conceptual openings in
neuroscience research. Unfortunately the biggest obstacle in Iran is the
limitation of research funding. The Iranian Cognitive Sciences and
Technologies council has started to support some parts of my project.
For the future I have plans to develop some optogenetic tools, to install
two-photon imaging system in my lab and to establish visualized invivo
double whole-cell patch and to do cutting edge research and training
with talented students in Tehran, my research team will focus on the
roles of brain modulatory systems in visual cortex network dynamics.
Regarding IBRO RHF program, I think amount of support have to be
increased several times more. Peoples that are winners of IBRO awards,
commonly working on cutting edge techniques in developing countries,
tools and devices for running similar experiments in home countries are
so expensive.
Commonly I advise Iranian scientist abroad to return home and give

benefit to their home country.