Confirmed Lecturers

Upinder Bhalla – National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India
Juan Burrone – King’s College, London, UK
Michael Dickinson – Caltech, Pasadena, CA, USA
Florian Engert – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Winrich Freiwald – The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA
Tamás Freund – Institute of Experimental Medicine, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
Tomáš Hromádka – Institute of Neuroimmunology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
Mark Hübener – Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
Balázs Hangya – Institute of Experimental Medicine, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
Na Ji – Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Farm, Ashburn, VA, USA
Georg Keller – Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland
Suhasa Kodandaramaiah – University of Minnesota, MN, USA
Hannah Monyer – University of Heidelberg, Germany
Tom Mrsic-Flögel – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
Venkatesh Murthy – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Danko Nikolić – Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany
Ruben Portugues – Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
Wolf Singer – Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany
Karel Svoboda – Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Farm, Ashburn, VA, USA
James Watson – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
Tony Zador – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA

Organizers

Raul Mureşan – Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Adam Kampff – Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, UK
Florin Albeanu – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA

Teaching Assistants

Arkarup Banerjee – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
Rob Campbell – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
Federico Carnevale – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
Adriana Dăbâcan – Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Medorian Gheorghiu – Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Priyanka Gupta – National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India & CSHL, NY, USA
Ovidiu Jurjut – Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Tübingen, Germany
Gonçalo Lopes – Champalimaud Foundation, Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
Vasile Moca – Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Mehrab N. Modi – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
Ivana Orsolic – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
Marius Pachiţariu – University College London, London, UK
Nacho Sanguinetti – Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, Germany
Josh Siegle – Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, WA, USA
Petr Znamenskiy – 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.