2010-Fall Course on Computational Neuroscience in Göttingen

As in the last years there will again be a fall course on computational neuroscience hosted by the BCCN Göttingen in 2010. It is ment as a tutorial for BCCN students as well as an open fall course for external students.

• Sophie Deneve, Ecole Normale Superieur, Paris, Group for Neural Theory
• Jeremy Niven, Dean Selwyn College, Cambridge
• Hansjörg Scherberger, Research Group Neurobiology, German Primate Center Göttingen
• Elad Schneidman, Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot
• Susanne Still, University of Hawaii,  Department of Information and Computer Sciences

The course is intended to provide graduate students and young researchers from all parts of neuroscience with working knowledge of theoretical and computational methods in neuroscience and to acquaint them with recent developments in this field.

The speakers provide an overview on important aspects and recent developments in their fields of expertise by means of three-hour tutorials. In addition to the tutorials, participants will gather in small groups and study one out of a number of recent research papers that are related to the respective tutorial. The "self-study" will be supervised by the speakers such that (based on the introduction given in the tutorials) a profound insight in the main ideas can be obtained. The results of the self-study will be shared with other participants and discussed with them and the speakers during the presentations.

The particular form of the course has proven successful in previous courses (1999 and 2001 at Bochum, 2003 - 2009 at Göttingen). It combines lecturing with an active interaction with the main ideas of the topical fields in a way which has proven efficient given the time constraints of the course.

Set-Up

One of the main objectives of the course will be to enable participants from any field of neuroscience to study recent research papers on their own. Each day of the course is devoted to a different topic. Part of the teaching will be in form of a tutorial, but there shall be room for the activities of the participants. In previous years each day has been divided into three phases:

1. Before noon there will be a tutorial consisting of two lectures (2 times 90 min) where (as a rule) the first one should introduce the topic of research and the second one more specifically should provide background information for the study of a number of recent key papers in the field.

2. Each paper is then assigned to a group consisting of about four participants. The papers shall be scanned already before the course (the papers can be downloaded some weeks before the course). In the early afternoon, participants discuss the paper and prepare a presentation to the members of the other groups. Speakers will be available during the self-study phase to answer questions related to the papers.

3. Later in the afternoon there are slots of 15 min presentations of these papers by one or more representatives of each group and discussions together with the tutorial speakers and the members of other groups.

In the evening there will be opportunities to participate in various social activities.

Preliminary Schedule

Questions
Can be asked via our contact form.

Former Fall Courses on Computational Neuroscience in Göttingen

2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003