Prof. Bassett is the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in the Departments of Bioengineering, Electrical & Systems Engineering, Physics & Astronomy, Neurology, and Psychiatry. They are also an external professor of the Santa Fe Institute. Bassett is most well-known for blending neural and systems engineering to identify fundamental mechanisms of cognition and disease in human brain networks. They received a B.S. in physics from Penn State University and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge, UK as a Churchill Scholar, and as an NIH Health Sciences Scholar. Following a postdoctoral position at UC Santa Barbara, Bassett was a Junior Research Fellow at the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. They have received multiple prestigious awards, including American Psychological Association’s ‘Rising Star’ (2012), Alfred P Sloan Research Fellow (2014), MacArthur Fellow Genius Grant (2014), Early Academic Achievement Award from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (2015), Office of Naval Research Young Investigator (2015), National Science Foundation CAREER (2016), Popular Science Brilliant 10 (2016), Lagrange Prize in Complex Systems Science (2017), Erdos-Renyi Prize in Network Science (2018), OHBM Young Investigator Award (2020), AIMBE College of Fellows (2020), American Physical Society Fellow (2021), and has been named one of Web of Science’s most Highly Cited Researchers for 3 years running. Bassett is the author of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, which have garnered over 33,000 citations, as well as numerous book chapters and teaching materials. Bassett’s work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Army Research Office, the Army Research Laboratory, the Office of Naval Research, the Department of Defense, the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, the Paul Allen Foundation, the ISI Foundation, and the Center for Curiosity. Bassett has an academic trade book coming out this year with MIT Press, co-authored with philosopher and twin Perry Zurn, and titled Curious Minds: The Power of Connection. 

Michelle G. Craske, Ph.D., AO is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Kevin Love Fund Centennial Chair, and Director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is also co-director of the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge. She has published extensively in the area of fear, anxiety and depression, including over 630 peer reviewed journal articles as well as academic books and several self-help books and therapist guides, and is on the Web of Science Most Highly Cited Researcher List. She has been the recipient of extramural funding since 1993 for research projects pertaining to risk factors for anxiety and depression among children and adolescents, neural mediators of emotion regulation and behavioral treatments for anxiety disorders, fear extinction translational models for optimizing exposure therapy, novel behavioral therapies targeting reward sensitivity and anhedonia, and scalable treatment models for underserved populations. As part of the Depression Grand Challenge, she developed the STAND program for screening, tracking and treating anxiety and depression. She is Editor-in-Chief for Behaviour Research and Therapy. Dr. Craske received her BA Hons from the University of Tasmania and her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. 

Dr. Pizzagalli received his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich and did post-doctoral work at University of Wisconsin. From 2002 until 2024, he was faculty at Harvard University, most recently as a Professor of Psychiatry.  In January 2025, he joined UC Irvine as the Founding Director of the Noel Drury, M.D. Institute for Translational Depression Discoveries, a Distinguished Professor and the Noel Drury MD Endowed Chair.  The main goals of his research are to (1) improve our understanding of depression and (2) identify biomarkers that could be used for personalized treatment.  Dr. Pizzagalli has published over 360 papers and chapters and serves on the editorial board of 13 journals. He is the Editor-In-Chief for the journal Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience.  Among several awards, he received two MERIT awards from NIMH, the Anne M. Cataldo Excellence in Mentoring Award, The Stuart T. Hauser, M.D. PhD. Mentorship Award in Psychiatry, the Joel Elkes Research Award (ACNP), a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award, the Anna-Monika-Prize for Research in the Neurobiology and Treatment of Depressive Disorders, the Gerald L. Klerman Senior Investigator Award (DBSA), and the Christensen Fellowship from the University of Oxford (2024). Since 2019, he has been a Highly Cited Researcher. 

Best Practices in HRV Research 
Mika P. Tarvainen, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Department of Technical Physics, University of Eastern Finland, and CEO, Kubios Oy

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is a valuable non-invasive marker of autonomic nervous system function, widely applied across diverse research domains. However, inconsistent methodologies can compromise the validity and comparability of HRV findings. This workshop will provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of best practices in HRV data collection, preprocessing, and analysis. Participants will gain insights into various measurement options, comparing ECG, PPG, and other emerging techniques. Comprehensive data preprocessing strategies will be covered, enabling participants to identify abnormal HRV data segments and equipping them with the best tools to handle artifacts and noisy data. Participants will also gain insights into selecting appropriate analytical approaches, encompassing time-domain, frequency-domain, and non-linear methods. Furthermore, we will address critical aspects of HRV interpretation, including the influence of individual factors. 

Through a combination of didactic presentations and hands-on sessions where participants complete defined HRV preprocessing and analysis tasks, this workshop aims to enhance the quality and reproducibility of HRV research. Participants should bring their own laptops with Kubios HRV Scientific software pre-installed. A temporary license for the software, as well as HRV datasets, will be provided to participants during the workshop. This workshop does not require a background in advanced mathematics or coding. This workshop is ideal for researchers, clinicians, and students interested in using HRV in their work. 

EEG Synchronization in Time, Frequency, and Space
Dr. Mike X Cohen, Sincxpress Education SRL 

Increases in the number of simultaneously recorded electrodes allows new discoveries about the spatiotemporal structure in the brain, but also presents new challenges for data analyses. In part this arises from difficulties in analyzing each electrode individually, in part because spatiotemporal structure in the brain spans multiple electrodes and levels of analysis. 

In this two-day workshop, you will learn two methods for EEG synchronization: bivariate narrowband phase synchronization (day 1) and multivariate optimal source isolation (day 2). “Bivariate narrowband phase synchronization” refers to the coordinated timing of frequency-specific signals between two electrodes; “optimal source isolation” refers to multichannel covariance-based decompositions that identify a small number of components from a larger number of electrodes. The workshop alternates between (1) discussions of theory/math, intuition, and proper interpretations; and (2) live coding demos to see the analysis in action and discover success and failure scenarios. We will use simulated data to evaluate against ground-truth patterns, and real EEG data to explore real-world applications. 

By the end of the two-day workshop, you will have knowledge and code that will catapult your advanced EEG analysis journey, as well as that buzzing feeling of learning something new and understanding something complicated. Code and sample data will be provided. MATLAB will be used during the workshop, and corresponding Python code will be made available. Bring your laptop and an appetite for learning! 

Workshop prerequisites: Some experience with EEG and basic MATLAB or Python coding. If you want to participate in the coding demos, bring a laptop with MATLAB installed, or access to matlab.mathworks.com. (Optional: This YouTube playlist contains relevant background info.) 

Day 1 workshop: 

•   9:00 — What “synchronization” does and doesn’t mean 

•   9:30 — Spectral analysis and filtering 

• 10:30 — Time-frequency analysis (filter-Hilbert method) 

• 11:30 — Simulating EEG data 

• 12:30 — Lunch break 

• 13:30 — Phase synchronization (simulated data) 

• 14:30 — Time-frequency phase synchronization (simulated data) 

• 15:30 — Demos with real EEG data 

• 16:30 — (optional) Office hours (questions for Mike) 

• 18:00 — (optional) informal drinks + food (not sponsored by SPR) 

Day 2 workshop: 

•   9:00 — What “source isolation” does and doesn’t mean 

•   9:30 — Linear algebra crash course (part 1) 

• 10:30 — Linear algebra crash course (part 2) 

• 11:30 — Principal components analysis 

• 12:30 — Lunch break 

• 13:30 — Optimal source isolation via generalized eigendecomposition 

• 14:30 — Source isolation and phase synchronization in simulated data 
• 15:30 — Source isolation and phase synchronization in real data 

The exhibitor prospectus will be available by April 1, 2025!

Interested in exhibiting at SPR 2025?
Please contact us at info@sprweb.org

If you are in need of an official Letter of Invitation from the Society for Psychophysiological Research to attend the SPR 2025 Annual Meeting in Montréal, please complete the request form below with all information exactly as you would like it to appear on your invitation letter. Please note all fields are required. Thank you!

The SPR National Office will process the request forms once a week leading up to the conference dates.

If you have any immediate questions, please contact info@sprweb.org or meetings@sprweb.org.

The Online Submissions Portal is OPEN!

We are now accepting submissions for the 2025 Annual Conference.  Don’t miss this opportunity to showcase your research.
Click Here for the 2025 Call for Abstracts

All deadlines are 11:59 p.m. EASTERN