Preparing for the CIHR Canadian National Brain Bee (CCNBB)

If you have been a competitor in a previous CCNBB competition, you may not compete again.  Please also check with your local brain bee organizers for whether you may compete more than once in your local brain bee competition. 

For more information regarding the day of the event, please refer to this tentative information document/schedule, which will be posted here soon. 
While you are waiting for the 2012 schedule, you might have a peek at last year's schedule (2012 will be similar):  Last year 2011:  CCNBB_Schedule_2011.pdf

If you are a contestant, we would appreciate it if you could complete the following demographic/travel survey to help us plan for the event.
The link to the survey will appear here by the end of March 2012.

Study Resources:

There will be several kinds of tests at the National Brain Bee, including multiple-choice questions, oral questions requiring one word or one phrase answers, a human neuroanatomy test, and a patient diagnosis test.  The recommended study resources for these tests are as follows (check back later in case we have been able to add some additional resource suggestions):

Questions and answers: 

The books from which all questions will be drawn are: 
The Brain Facts book, published by the Society for Neurosciences (downloadable in PDF format from the Society for Neurosciences web site)
and Neuroscience: Science of the Brain, published by the European Dana Alliance for the Brain in many different languages.
These same two books are used at the International Brain Bee competition.

English version of Neuroscience: Science of the Brain:

• http://brain.mcmaster.ca/BrainBee/Neuroscience.Science.of.the.Brain.pdf  (5 Mb)
• http://brain.mcmaster.ca/BrainBee/about.the.book.pdf  (900k)

This book can be obtained from the website of the British Neuroscience Society: http://www.bna.org.uk/static/brain-science.php. It is also available to download in PDF format in 17 different languages from the IBRO web site at http://www.ibro.org.  From that site, go to "Brain Campaign" where you will find links to all the language versions of the book.  You can also try this link to access the Brain Campaign page: http://www.braincampaign.org/Pub/Pub_Front.asp.

Note that if you use the Brain Campaign site, the book has to be downloaded chapter by chapter.  For your convenience, we have made the English version available as one large PDF document (with all the chapters in one document).  This makes a larger file (5 Mb, from the links provided above), but may be more convenient for you.

Human neuroanatomy: 

The neuroanatomy bell-ringer competition consists of approximately 20 or 25 stations where brains, brain slices, or pictures of brains will be presented.  Check out the video highlights from last year to get an idea (front page of this web site).  The brains will have pins stuck in a particular part of the gross anatomy, and there will be questions at each station that ask for the name of the structure or the function of that structure.  Students will have approximately 2 minutes at each station.  When time is up, a bell will ring, and each student will move to the next station.  To study for this part, look for a human brain atlas and a textbook covering basic neuroanatomy.

Here are a few web sites that might be useful as you study neuroanatomy:
http://www9.biostr.washington.edu/da.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nsdivide.html (for kids, but a good start!)
http://www.med.wayne.edu/diagRadiology/Anatomy_Modules/brain/brain.html
http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/HISTHTML/NEURANAT/NEURANCA.html
http://www.getbodysmart.com/ap/nervoussystem/cns/brain/menu/menu.html
http://nhscience.lonestar.edu/biol/ap1int.htm#brain (some broken links)
http://nhscience.lonestar.edu/biol/ap1int.htm#sense (some broken links)
Sylvius software from Sinauer (http://www.sinauer.com/sylvius4/) (costs about $55)

Patient Diagnosis: 

There will be approximately 8 Standardized Patients who are professionally trained to portray neurological disorders. Students will be required to diagnose the neurological disorders by asking the patients questions.  Students will visit each patient in a patient diagnosis room, and spend about 5 minutes asking questions.  The questions must be of the type that can be answered by "yes", "no", or "I don't know".  The patients will not be allowed to provide any other answers than these.  At the end of the 5 minutes, the student will record the diagnosis for that patient, and move on to the next patient.  There will be 12 possible disorders to choose from: bipolar disorder, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, schizophrenia, stroke, Tourette Syndrome, neurological AIDS, chronic pain, and autism (and possibly more, check back here a bit later to see if we have added any). 

To study for this part, you might try the Medical Encyclopedia of Medline Plus which can be found at the National Library of Medicine website: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/encyclopedia.html

International Brain Bee Resources:

The International Brain Bee will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 22-27, 2012.  Our Canadian champion and guardian will need to make sure they have travel visas approved in time for the trip.  The books "Brain Facts" and "Neuroscience: Science of the Brain" will also be used at the International Brain Bee.  There will also likely be patient diagnosis and neuroanatomy exams.  As mentioned above, the book can be accessed in 17 different languages, but all the questions at the International competition will be asked in English. For more information on the International Brain Bee (including competition breakdown and prizes) see the competition overview section of the IBB website. 

Brain Bee Logo

Here you can use the official brain bee icon for your websites, documents, and media-related needs.

Do not use the thumbnail samples below in any publication; they are very low resolution and meant for illustration on this page only. The eps files are high quality graphics suitable for use in print publications; they are vector files on transparent backgrounds and can be scaled from 1 inch to a million without losing their resolution. The gif files are suitable for use in web and electronic applications; they cannot be enlarged.

Brain Bee Icon logo full colour

PRINT (.eps)

SMALL (.gif) LARGE (.gif)

High School Students!

The first step to participating in the Canadian National Brain Bee is to find a Local Brain Bee near you.  Check the list of Canadian "Local Bees" from our main page.  The organization of each local brain bee is unique, so it is best to contact the organizer to find out about location, competition dates, and registration details.  Winners of the local brain bees are invited to the Canadian National Brain Bee, and the winner of the National bee will go on to represent Canada at the International Brain Bee.

There are different resources to use depending on whether you are studying for the local, national, or international brain bee competitions.

Local Brain Bee Study Resources:

Check with your local brain bee organizers regarding study resources.  Some local brain bees will draw all the questions and answers from the Brain Facts book, published by the Society for Neurosciences (downloadable in PDF format from the Society for Neurosciences web site.  Other local brain bees will draw all the questions and answers from "Neuroscience: Science of the Brain", published by the European Dana Alliance for the Brain. You can find the links to this resource here.  Be sure to check with your local organizers to make sure that your students are studying the right material for the local competitions.  

Some sample questions have been provided by the International Brain Bee organizers.  These are the only questions that have been officially "released" from the question and answer set.  You can look at these sample questions at this page:  http://www.internationalbrainbee.com/for_highschool.html

It is great fun and rewarding to run a local brain bee!

There are some great tips and advice on the International Brain Bee website "Start A Bee":  http://www.internationalbrainbee.com/startup.html. It doesn't have to cost much in time or money, and is well worth the effort. 

If you are coordinating a local brain bee, you can make up your own questions from the Brain Facts book .  We can help you get started with a set of confidential questions created by the International Brain Bee organizers. If you prefer to use the "Neuroscience: Science of the Brain" resource you will need to create your own questions.  This is the same resource that is used at the National and International competitions.  

To get the set of prepared questions for the Brain Facts book, contact the Chair of the Canadian National Brain Bee, Dr. Judith M Shedden (shedden at mcmaster.ca).  Please note the following from Dr. Myslinski's startup web site:  "Our question packet consists of 466 questions with one word or one phrase answers. They are organized according to the different sections of the publication, and are ranked as easy, moderate, or difficult. This question packet can be provided only to the local coordinators (not their assistants), and is available by request. No copies should be made of the questions since they will be used at other Local Brain Bees worldwide, so the integrity of the document must be maintained at all times."

Don't hesitate to contact other organizers of Canadian local brain bees for start-up advice.