Olympiad · In person
Japan's national round of the International Brain Bee, a neuroscience knowledge contest for junior high and high school students, whose winner is nominated for the world championship. The 2026 round is over; the 2027 dates have not been announced.
The International Brain Bee began in the US in 1999 to spark interest in neuroscience among teenagers. Questions are quiz-style and come mainly from the free English textbook Brain Facts (a Japanese edition is available as a reference). They cover basic brain science, intelligence, emotion, memory and vision, as well as diseases such as Alzheimer's, stroke and schizophrenia. The Japan preliminary is about a 1-hour computer test. A few top scorers advance to an in-person final, and the winner is nominated as Japan's representative at the world championship.