[CTN] graduate courses of possible interest

[Matthijs van der Meer]

Two courses of possible interest are offered this Fall term. Please
contact the instructors if interested.


BIOL 678 Current Topics in Neurophysiology (0.50) LEC
Thursdays, 12-3pm

Dr. David Spafford & Dr. Matt van der Meer

Official description:

Principles and applications for the study of membrane proteins in
physiological processes will be covered, with particular emphasis on
voltage-, receptor- and second messenger-operated channels. Discussions
will focus on modern techniques employed in electrophysiology,
pharmacology, imaging and biochemistry.

Unofficial notes:

This course has two components: (1) hands-on simulations at the cellular
level to build an understanding of membrane potential dynamics (in
NEURON, Dr. Spafford, based on BIOL376) and (2) presentation and
discussion of current review articles from a broad spectrum of
neuroscience topics (Dr. Spafford & Dr. van der Meer). Several CTN
students have previously taken this course.



BIOL 680 Data Analysis in Neuroscience (special topics course)
Time TBD

Dr. Matt van der Meer

This course provides a hands-on introduction to signal processing and
statistics for the analysis of neural data. Using MATLAB and a number of
data sets recorded in the van der Meer lab, the following topics will be
explored at a level accessible to those without a technical background:

1. Good habits for data analysis (paths, backups, versioning, annotation)
2. Visualizing neural data in MATLAB
3. Anatomy of neural data: time series, sampling, aliasing
4. Filtering: filter design, use, caveats
5. Fourier series, transforms, power spectra
6. Time-frequency analysis: spectrograms
7. Time-frequency analysis II: autoregressive models, cross-frequency
coupling
8. Coherence (if time permits: partial coherence, Grainger causality)
9. Spike train analysis: firing rate, interspike interval distributions,
autocorrelation, spike spectrum
10. Spike train analysis II: tuning curves, encoding, decoding
11. Spike-field relationships: phase locking, phase precession
12. Spike sorting
13. Basic parametric hypothesis testing
14. Bootstrapping and nonparametric tests
15. Regression models
16. Principal component analysis, classification