Confirmed Lecturers

Albeanu, Florin – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
Bhalla, Upinder – National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India
Burrone, Juan – King’s College, London, UK
Engert, Florian – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Gradinaru, Viviana – California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Hofer, Sonja – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
Hromádka, Tomáš – Institute of Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic
Hübener, Mark – Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
Kampff, Adam – Champalimaud Foundation, Institute for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
Katzner, Steffen – Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen, Germany
Keller, Georg – Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland
Kepecs, Adam – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
Monyer, Hannah – University of Heidelberg, Germany
Mrsic-Flögel, Tom – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
Mureşan, Raul – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Murthy, Venkatesh – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Nikolić, Danko – Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany
Ölveczky, Bence – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Shoham, Shy – The Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Singer, Wolf – Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany

Organizers

Mureşan, Raul – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Kampff, Adam – Champalimaud Foundation, Institute for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
Albeanu, Florin – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA

Teaching Assistants

Dăbâcan, Adriana – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Dhawale, Ashesh – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Dreosti, Elena – University College London, UK
Gupta, Priyanka – National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India & CSHL, NY, USA
Hangya, Balázs – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
Jurjuţ, Ovidiu – Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Tübingen, Germany
Moca, Vasile – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Modi, Mehrab N. – National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India
Siegle, Josh – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Ţincaş, Ioana – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Znamenskiy, Petr – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland

Topics

Basic Optics – Diffraction and Resolution. Illumination Techniques. Numerical Aperture.
Optical bench exercises – Lenses, optical systems, illumination methods, basic microscopy techniques. How to custom build different kinds of microscopes.
Noise measurements and photo-sensors – Shot noise, optical detectors, amplifiers, NI-DAQ, CCD cameras, photodiodes, photo multiplier tubes (PMTs).
Light and fluorescence microscopy – Fluorescence, FRAP, photo-activation, photo-conversion. Point spread function measurements, basic image analysis (deconvolution, denoising, PCA).
Fluorescence probes – GFP, GFP based chromophores, organic calcium dyes, genetically encoded calcium dyes, pHluorins, voltage sensitive dyes.
Intrinsic Optical Imaging – Visual, auditory & barrel cortex; olfactory bulb. Students will build a custom wide field fluorescence and intrinsic optical imaging rig.
Scanning microscopy – Confocal and two-photon microscopy. LASERs. Introduction to Labview. Students will build a two-photon microscope and write custom scanning and acquisition software in Labiew. Open source systems.
Viral approaches to label, monitor and alter neuronal circuits.
Optogenetics – Light activated ion channels and pumps. Patterned photo-stimulation techniques.
Benchtop electronics and basic electrophysiology – Impedence and Dipoles. Amplifiers. Extracellular and intracellular recordings. LFP; single unit, multi-unit extracellular recordings, tetrodes, electrode arrays; patch clamp.
Awake head fixed and freely moving optical and electrophysiological recording strategies in rodents – Microdrives. Fiber optic based systems. Open source systems.
Techniques for electrophysiological data analysis.
Monitoring animal behavior – Open Source tools for acquisition and analysis of video data. Intro to Python and Arduino. Training Strategies. Closed loop systems.
Neuronal functional connectivity and neuronal connectomics – Serial electron-microscopy and trans-synaptic labeling methods.
Synchrony and oscillations.
Cortical attention, sparse neuronal codes.
Decision making, uncertainty, neuro-modulatory systems.
Introduction to theoretical and computational modeling of neuronal circuits.