Dear Users
This Thursday (24th April) there will be a seminar at YNiC from 4-5 pm
about "Hyperpolarised gas MR physics and engineering".
The speaker is Dr. Jim Wild from the University of Sheffield:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/medicine/staff/wild.html
All are welcome and drinks will be available afterwards.
Best wishes
Rebecca
--
************************************************************************
Dr. Rebecca E. Millman
Science Liaison Officer
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Heslington
YO10 5DG
Tel: +44 (0) 1904 567614
Fax: +44 (0) 1904 435356
<http://fens.org> <http://fens.mdc-berlin.de/>
*/Federation of European Neuroscience Societies/*
...............................................................................................................................................................................................
------------------------------------------------------------------------
................................................................................................................................................................................................
*FENS Office Berlin*
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
Robert-Rössle-Str. 10
13092 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 9406 3336
Fax: +49 30 9406 3819
e-mail: gibson(a)mdc-berlin.de <mailto:gibson@mdc-berlin.de>,
a.buchheister(a)mdc-berlin.de <mailto:a.buchheister@mdc-berlin.de>
<http://mars.glia.mdc-berlin.de/pens/>
<http://fens.mdc-berlin.de/pens/>
<http://www.ibro.info/>
..........................................................................................................................................................................................
*
PENS Training Center
*Imaging Brain Function: From Synapses to Networks*
*
*
**This is to remind you that the **PENS Training Center**: *
*Imaging Brain Function: From Synapses to Networks
<http://fens.mdc-berlin.de/pens/2008/schools/lausanne/>*
**
*invites student applications. The School will be held in Lausanne and
Geneva, **Switzerland**, from **September 7-27, 2008** *
*The deadline for application is **April 15, 2008**.*
*For more* *information and application please contact*:
http://fens.org/pens/2008/schools/lausanne/
.................................................................................................................................................................................................
*FENS OFFICE BERLIN*
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch,
Robert-Rössle-Str. 10, D-13092 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 9406 3336, Fax: +49 30 9406 3819
e-mail: a.buchheister(a)mdc-berlin.de <mailto:a.buchheister@mdc-berlin.de>
Dear all,
this is just a reminder of the YNiC ASC tomorrow, which Quentin
Summerfield will be chairing, on the subject of Auditory fMRI. It will
take place in Psychology B020 at 4.30pm Thursday 27th March. The agenda
will be as follows:
* Rebecca Millman will start the session with a presentation on Safety
and Practical Issues relating to Auditory fMRI.
* Quentin Summerfield will then make a presentation on his previous
experiences of fMRI at Nottingham.
* Andre Gouws will then make a presentation about Technical Issues
relating to Auditory fMRI.
* A discussion about possible ways forward in York will follow.
Thanks,
Michael
--
Dr Michael Simpson
Science Liaison Officer
York Neuroimaging Centre
Innovation Way
York
YO10 5DG
Tel: 01904 567614
Web: http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
Dear Colleagues
FYI
Gary
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Eeglablist] MBL Neuroinformatics 2008
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:38:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Diane Whitmer <dwhitmer(a)biomail.ucsd.edu>
To: eeglablist(a)sccn.ucsd.edu
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:51:06 -0400
From: Catherine Hemmerdinger <catherineh(a)mbl.edu>
To: catherineh(a)mbl.edu
Subject: Neuroinformatics 2008
This is a gentle reminder follow-up e-mail to the e-mail copied
below. Thanks for your help.
We write to inform you of the opportunity for your graduate students,
post-docs and colleagues to participate in the MBL special topics
course "Neuroinformatics" , described at the link below, devoted to
neuronal data analysis and modeling with an emphasis on signal
processing and statistics. This course attracts leaders in the field
to teach a unique and intensive schedule. In addition, faculty and
students have numerous opportunities for informal discussion and to
analyze real data sets. We believe that the educational experience
and the ability to network with leading scientists from many
institutions, provided by this course, is not available at any single
home institution.
Substantial financial aid is available to defray the cost of tuition.
Neuroinformatics
Course Dates: August 16 - 31, 2008
Directors: Partha Mitra, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
David Kleinfeld. UC San Diego
Location: Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole MA
* Application Deadline: April 11, 2008 *
http://www.mbl.edu/education/courses/special_topics/neufo.html
This course contains pedagogical lectures on basic statistical
techniques as well as focussed mini-workshops on specific
neuroscience topics where applications of these techniques are
critical.
Thank you in advance for passing on this information. Based on
comments from alumni this educational experience has had a profound
effect on their scientific career.
Sincerely,
Partha Mitra
David Kleinfeld
VISIT OUR WEB SITE:
http://www.mbl.edu/education/
--
Catherine Hemmerdinger
Assistant to the Director of Education
Marine Biological Laboratory
7 MBL Street
Woods Hole, MA 02543
tel: (508) 289-7340
fax: (508) 289-7931
e-mail: catherineh(a)mbl.edu
_______________________________________________
Eeglablist page: http://sccn.ucsd.edu/eeglab/eeglabmail.html
To unsubscribe, send an empty email to eeglablist-unsubscribe(a)sccn.ucsd.edu
For digest mode, send an email with the subject "set digest mime" to
eeglablist-request(a)sccn.ucsd.edu
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
Contrary to my previous email, I will be practising my EPS talk
tomorrow (Tuesday) at 4.30 in YNiC.
'The neural basis of the right visual field advantage for visual word
recognition' by Ellis, Barca, Cornelissen, Simpson, Urooj and Woods.
Andy
--
Professor Andy Ellis
Department of Psychology
University of York
York YO10 5DD
England
Tel. +44 (0)1904 433140
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/psych/www/people/biogs/awe1.html
Dear Colleagues
Angel Nevado will be leaving soon to take up a position in Madrid. To
celebrate his success in obtaining his prestigious new position and to
thank him for all of his contributions whilst he has been working in
York, there will be celebratory drinks and a dinner on Wednesday evening.
Drinks will be served at YNiC from 5pm on Wednesday.
The dinner will be at the ASK restaurant at about 8pm that same evening.
If you wish to attend, please email me
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
Dear colleagues
Today there will be a new project presentation by Cindy Hagan on
'Crossmodal Integration of Tone of Voice'
4pm, YNiC Open Plan area
New project proposal seminars are an opportunity to contribute to the
design and implementation of the science programme at YNiC. Users are
required to make a presentation as part of the application process. All
welcome Refreshments wil be provided
-------------
The next seminar will be
'The neural basis of the right visual field advantage for word recognition'
by
Andy Ellis, Laura Barca, Piers Cornelissen, Michael Simpson, Uzma Urooj
& Will Woods
on Tuesday the 18th of March at 4.30pm
in the YNiC open plan area
All welcome
Refreshments will be provided
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
Dear colleagues,
We will have a seminar on next wednesday, 12th March about medical image
analysis by Dr. Lee Harrison, UCL. We would like to invite you and your
group members to join the seminar. The detail of the seminar is as
follows. Please could you circulate this email to your group members,
and we welcome every one to join the seminar.
Best regards,
Fan Zhang
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Group,
Computer Science Department,
University of York, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lee Harrison (University College London)
Title: "Spatial models of functional magnetic resonance images"
11:15AM - 12:30AM, 12th March, Wednesday in Room CS103, Computer Science
Building
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I will talk about Bayesian spatial models of fMRI time-series data. In
particular, we use a weighted graph Laplacian (WGL) to partition a brain
volume into computationally manageable segments, using an isoperimetric
partitioning algorithm (Grady 2006). Data from each segment is then entered
into a 2-level general linear model (GLM) with matrix-variate normal
densities over likelihood and prior at the 1st and 2nd levels. The spatial
covariance matrix of the prior over voxels is given by the heat kernel of a
WGL and all parameters and hyperparameters e.g. controlling dispersion of
the heat kernel, are optimized using an EM algorithm with Fisher-Scoring
ascent scheme. The benefits of this approach are that GLM parameters have
an explicit and (generally) non-stationary spatial model. This allows
formal model comparison of different hypotheses about how data are
generated, e.g. from a stationary or non-stationary spatial process."
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
Dear colleagues,
_Auditory stimulus delivery in fMRI._
This ASK session will be held at 4:30 pm on Thursday the 27th of March.
This is a change from the original scheduling of Wednesday the 19th of
March. We will confirm the venue, but hope to host the session in B020
as before.
Remember that these sessions are intended to be a forum where you can
air your concerns, share your expertise and request a wish list for
solutions to be provided at (not necessarily by!) YNiC.
We hope to see you there.
Regards,
Andre'
************************************************************************
Andre Gouws
User Support Manager
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Heslington
YO10 5DG
Tel: +44 (0) 1904 435328
Fax: +44 (0) 1904 435356
Welcome to 'Brain Awareness Week 2008'! - an annual opportunity for
neuroscientists across the globe to focus on celebrating and communicating
progress in brain science to the public. Coordinated in the UK by the
European Dana Alliance for the Brain
(www.edab.net <http://www.edab.net/> ), one of the events is...
----
National Brain Science Writing Prize 2008. In collaboration with EDAB,
At-Bristol and Focus magazine, the BNA is launching a competition this
week to find the best brain communicators. Could you write a
newspaper-style article celebrating the amazing world of brain science?
To find out more, contact:
www.youramazingbrain.org <http://www.youramazingbrain.org/> .
Closing date for entries: 30th June, 2008.
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
Dear colleagues
Last week we held a YNiC Thursday seminar on using Unix on the Macs. The
attendance was quite low suggesting that Users probably had enough
knowledge on this topic for them to be able to do what they needed at
that level of computing. The original idea was that the session would
continue this week but as we have had apologies even from those who had
attended last week, it seems that we should not hold today's seminar.
So, NO seminar today.
Next week there will be a new project presentation, 4pm, Thursday the
13th, YNiC open plan.
All welcome
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
Dear colleagues
As you know we have been encouraging users to use their 'scratch' disc
space for temporary files and as a workspace for intermediate analysis.
We monitor the total usage of this space daily and it is growing very
rapidly. We predict that this space will run out in a few days if we do
not act. The majority of the usage is by just a few users but, please,
if you have a large amount of data/information in scratch, can you look
at it and endeavour to delete anything that is redundant. If we do not
do this then the systems will fail.
One way of getting around these problems is to use a group space for
your project. Group scratch is not used much and is an efficient way of
sharing information without it having to be duplicated by each user,
within a group, in their own scratch space. If your project does not
have a group scratch directory then please email it-support(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
thanks
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
Dear Colleagues
MEG is now up and running again. You can now book your MEG sessions
again through Claire.
It looks as though the Polhemus failed due to a fault in an serial line
isolator. So the whole system failed due to a £5 component. Sorry!
While we were waiting for a delivery of a new Polhemus system and the
engineeer, the YNiC team took the opportunity to reorganise the MEG
equipment room. The equipment and cables have been tidied, labelled and
organised. Please do not change anything in the equipment room as there
is now actually no need to change cables or equipment.
The camera has also been moved in the MSR (magnetically shielded room)
and it is now possible to monitor your subjects during an experiment
even if you are using the large screen. Please remember to tell your
subjects that they are being monitored.
Happy MEGing
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
Dear colleagues
Today we are being visited by the VC, the pro-VC for research and Sir
David Cooksey. David Cooksey wrote the recent government report on medical
research which has resulted in the setting up of the National Institute of
Medical Research and the integration of the NHS R&D programme with the
MRC. His current main interests are concerned with translational research.
If ...., you were thinking of visiting YNiC yourself today then it would
help us if you happened to be present in open plan between 1.30 and 2.15
with some interesting images on the screen. If anyone is doing experiments
within MRI or MEG then please be prepared to have visitors ask some
questions about what you are doing. Of course I cannot predict if they
will visit, whether they will be on time or whether they will actually
stop as we walk through open plan.
thank you
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
FYI
We are now accepting applications for the 2008 UCLA Advanced
Neuroimaging Summer School, to be help July 14-25, 2008 in Los
Angeles, CA. For more information and to apply for the course, please
visit:
http://www.poldracklab.org/nitp2008
Cheers,
Russ
---
Russell A. Poldrack, Ph.d.
Associate Professor
Wendell Jeffrey and Bernice Wenzel Term Chair in Behavioral Neuroscience
UCLA Department of Psychology
Franz Hall, Box 951563
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563
phone: 310-794-1224
fax: 310-206-5895
email: poldrack(a)ucla.edu
web: www.poldracklab.org
Dear all,
this is just a quick mailing to advertise a YNiC ASC on March 19th. It
will be on the subject of Auditory fMRI, and will be chaired by Quentin
Summerfield. Should you want to contribute anything to the agenda,
please email Quentin in advance <aqs1(a)york.ac.uk>. Otherwise, simply
come along and join in the discussion. As before, a short digest of the
YNiC ASC will be emailed to ynic-users a few days after the session.
Nearer the time, Quentin will forward an agenda (i.e. once it has been
established). And as before, the session will take place in Psychology
B020, at 4pm.
Thanks,
Michael
--
Dr Michael Simpson
Science Liaison Officer
York Neuroimaging Centre
Innovation Way
York
YO10 5DG
Tel: 01904 567614
Web: http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
Hello all,
Just a reminder and a little more information about this Thursday's
Seminar at YNiC. Mark has prepared an introduction to Unix that I will
do my very best to translate into something we mere mortals can
understand. This week we'll be covering some of the generic basics,
including the permissions problem I know has been an issue of late.
There'll also be information on some simple command line tools and the
basics of scripting.
Next week we'll be looking at YNiC specific information, including some
useful hints and tips that will hopefully help to save you time and
blood pressure.
Thanks,
Sam
Dear colleagues
I am sorry to have to announce that MEG is not working. We have had a
problem since late last week with the Polhemus system which is needed
for co-registration of the data with MRI. We thought we had fixed it
over the weekend but it is now clear that we have to have a new unit
flown in from San Diego. We will also need to get 4D engineers to attend
to fix the problem as it is not simply one of replacing the unit.
Unfortunately this means that MEG may be unavailable until the middle of
next week.
I know this is going to be a major inconvenience as MEG is currently
very busy. As soon as it is working again we will let you know and will
help you rebook or reorganise your time in MEG. We will almost certainly
have to organise block booking so that several participants can be
scanned one after the other to get through the backlog.
The MEG system itself is working fine! Projects are stalled because of a
piece of equipment that costs less than 1% of the original MEG cost.
Sorry,
Gary
--
Gary Green
Director
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5DG
http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
tel. 01904 435349
fax 01904 435356
mobile 07986 778954
<apologies for multiple postings>
Announcement and Call for Applications:
The Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) is organizing a
PENS-Blackwell Summer School on:
Theoretical Neuroscience & Complex Systems
Frankfurt, Germany, August 2-24, 2008
We invite applications for this three-week summer school from graduate
students and post-docs in experimental and computational neuroscience and
theoretical physics. Up to 30 students will be accepted.
The school is supported by PENS - the Programme of European Neuroscience
Schools, an IBRO-FENS collaboration.
Application deadline: Monday, April 7.
School: http://fias.uni-frankfurt.de/neuro_school/
Application: http://fens.mdc-berlin.de/pens/2008/schools/frankfurt/
Scientific Directors:
W. Maass, C. von der Malsburg, G. Pipa,
W. Singer, J. Triesch, M. Tsodyks
Lecturers and Tutors Include:
* Dana Ballard, UT Austin, USA
* Emery Brown, Harvard/MIT, Cambridge, USA
* Yang Dan, UC Berkeley, USA
* Sophie Deneve, CNRS, France
* Rodney Douglas, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
* Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain
* Wulfram Gerstner, EPFL, Switzerland
* Ann Graybiel, MIT, USA
* Mary Hayhoe, UT Austin, USA
* Jurgen Kurths, University of Potsdam, Germany,
* Jorg Lucke, FIAS, Germany
* Wolfgang Maass, Technische Universitat, Graz, Austria
* Christoph von der Malsburg, FIAS, Germany
* Sergio Neuenschwander, MPIH, Germany
* Danko Nikolic, MPIH, Germany
* Gordon Pipa, FIAS and MPIH, Germany
* Austra Saudargiene, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
* Kerstin Schmidt, MPIH, Germany
* Wolf Singer, MPIH, Germay
* Olaf Sporns, Indiana University, USA
* Jochen Triesch, FIAS, Germany
* Peter Uhlhaas, MPIH, Germany
* Raul Vicente, FIAS and MPIH, Germany
* Cornelius Weber FIAS, Germany
* Michael Wibral, MPIH, Germany
* Kai Willadsen, FIAS, Germany
* Junmei Zhu, FIAS, Germany
Topics:
mathematical and biological foundations of theoretical neuroscience;
analysis of neural data; modelling of neurons and small networks; plasticity
and learning; modelling higher cognitive functions, embodiment
Format:
- a 3-day pre-school to establish a common foundation and language
- daily lectures by renowned international faculty
- hands-on work on self-defined projects in interdisciplinary groups
- round table discussions
- a social and cultural program
Registration Fees, Travel Expenses and Waivers:
The school covers the expenses for accommodation and the cultural program.
Students will have to pay a registration fee of 400 EURO. A small number of
grants are available for students who need support for their travel expenses
and a waiver for the registration fee. They are primarily intended for
students from disadvantaged regions. If you consider applying for financial
support, please indicate this in your application. We also need an estimate
of your travel expenses (in EUROs).
For further information, please contact:
Neuro School
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies Johann Wolfgang Goethe University
Ruth-Moufang-Str. 1
60438 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
email: neuro_school(a)fias.uni-frankfurt.de
tel: +49 69 798 47601
fax: +49 69 798 47611
Hi, all,
This is just a reminder that the second part of the Msc project
presentations that have started last week will continue tomorrow
Thursday at 4PM at YNiC.
Everyone is welcome
S
Silvia Gennari
Department of Psychology
University of York
York, YO10 5DD
United Kingdom
Dear All,
Some may find this course interesting.
Maribel
--
________________________________
Maribel Pulgarin
MEG Manager
York Neuroimaging Centre
Innovation Way
York
YO10 5DG
Tel: 01904 567614
Fax: 01904 435356
Web: http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
----- Mensaje reenviado ----
De: Mate Lengyel <lmate(a)gatsby.ucl.ac.uk>
Para: comp-neuro(a)neuroinf.org
Enviado: miércoles, 13 de febrero, 2008 17:30:48
Asunto: [Comp-neuro] Call for applications: PGCN 2008 Course on The
Hippocampus and Navigation
Call for applications:
The Hippocampus and Navigation
31 March - 4 April 2008
Champalimaud Foundation Neuroscience Program
Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência
Oerias, Portugal
This intensive, week-long course will explore one of the most
intensively investigated and fascinating regions of the mammalian brain,
the hippocampus. Leading researchers will provide background on
classical and contemporary views of this structure, ranging from the
microcircuit to the behavioral level. Topics of focus will include the
anatomy and physiology of the hippocampal formation, navigation and
spatial processing, neural maps and memory, and cortico-hippocampal
replay of neural activity. The integration of experimental and
theoretical/computational approaches will be emphasized. Tutorials and
seminars will be complemented by debates, focus lectures and
discussions. A final symposium will address the future of hippocampal
research. A list of instructors is below; full schedule information is
available at
http://pgcn.igc.gulbenkian.pt/doku.php/pgcn:course:navigation_hippocampus:s….
Up to 10 places available for students for this course. Applications are
especially encouraged from doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows
with some general background in neuroscience. There will be no tuition
charge but students will be expected to pay their own travel, board and
accommodation. The course runs as part of the Gulbenkian-Champalimaud
Neuroscience Program (PGCN), an PhD program in the biological bases of
behavior. Logistical assistance for local accommodation will be
provided. Further logistical information is available at the course web
site.
Applications should be sent to Miguel Remondes (remondes(a)MIT.EDU
<mailto:remondes@MIT.EDU>) and
include a CV, names and email of 2 references, and a short statement of
interest (max 500 words).
Application deadline is 24 February, 2008.
Course organizers:
Miguel Remondes (MIT)
Mate Lengyel (U Cambridge)
Program director:
Zach Mainen (CFNP, IGC)
Course instructors:
Francesco Battaglia (U Amsterdam)
Sue Becker (McMaster U)
Verner Bingman (BGSU)
Neil Burgess (UCL)
József Csicsvári (U Oxford)
Anthony Dickinson (U Cambridge)
Howard Eichenbaum (BU)
Fred Gage (Salk I)
Wulfram Gerstner (EPFL)
Mike Hasselmo (BU)
Stefan Leutgeb (Trondheim)
Ole Paulsen (U Oxford)
Cosme Salas (U Sevilla)
Wendy Suzuki (NYU)
Alessandro Treves (SISSA)
Nachum Ulanovsky (Weizmann I)
Matt Wilson (MIT)
Menno Witter (Trondheim)
Sponsored by:
Champalimaud Foundation
Gulbenkian Foundation
--
Mate Lengyel, PhD
Computational and Biological Learning Lab
Cambridge University Engineering Department
Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK
tel +44 (0)1223 748 532, fax +44 (0)1223 332 662
lmate(a)gatsby.ucl.ac.uk <mailto:lmate@gatsby.ucl.ac.uk>,
gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~lmate
_______________________________________________
Comp-neuro mailing list
Comp-neuro(a)neuroinf.org <mailto:Comp-neuro@neuroinf.org>
http://www.neuroinf.org/mailman/listinfo/comp-neuro
Dear All
NOTES ON THE YNIC ANALYSIS SUPPORT COLLOQUIUM ON VIRTUAL ELECTRODE
ANALYSES IN MEG, WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2008.
The current YNiC MEG tools allow us to create beautiful and
defensible images showing how the brain's responses to stimuli evolve
over time. But beamforming requires the comparison of active windows
with passive windows, and the use of active windows less that 200 ms
long is not recommended. So while moving windows convey a good
initial impression of the progression of neural events, they do not
take full advantage of MEG's potential for looking at the detailed
timing of those events.
There is another issue with beamformed brain maps, which is that it
is not easy to compare results across conditions. You can point out
that there is a significant response in a particular brain region in
one condition of an experiment but not in another, but it could be
that the response just makes it over the threshold in one condition
and just falls below threshold in the other. The absolute difference
in the magnitude of the two responses (or, to be accurate, the
magnitude of the difference between the two active and passive
conditions) may be small.
Virtual electrodes offer the potential for asking intelligent
questions about the strength and time course of events at specific
points in the brain, allowing direct comparisons between conditions
and making better use of the temporal resolution of MEG. Piers
Cornelissen presented the results of some virtual electrode analyses
he and his colleagues have done, comparing responses to different
types of stimuli at different regions of interest in the brain.
Piers showed results in the form of time-frequency histograms
('Stockwell plots'), separating out evoked and induced components of
the total response; also event-related frequency (ERF) plots showing
changes in the amplitude of evoked responses over time. He also
discussed techniques that he and his colleagues have used for making
statistical comparisons across conditions in both types of analysis.
A lengthy and gripping discussion ranged over:
1. The best method to identify regions of interest,
2. How best, having identified a point of interest in a standardised
brain, to identify the corresponding points in individual participant
brains, and
3. What issues are involved in doing individual and group level
analyses, and what would be the best analyses to adopt within YNiC,
at least as interim solutions that will allow research groups to make
progress with these techniques.
Doing virtual electrode analyses at a group level is a complex
business but has strong appeal to a number of researchers. Piers has
a working solution which he and Uzma will document and make
available. In complement to this documentation, YNiC will document
the assumptions and issues associated with Virtual Electrode Analysis
at the group level.
It was also clear in the discussion that connectivity measures
applied to Virtual Electrode analysis are going to be important to
understanding more about the signals recorded in MEG, and more about
how functional interactions involving different regions in the brain
evolve over time. Deep thought will be given to this topic within
YNiC.
Ideas for future fora are welcomed.
Andy Ellis and Michael Simpson
--
Professor Andy Ellis
Department of Psychology
University of York
York YO10 5DD
England
Tel. +44 (0)1904 433140
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/psych/www/people/biogs/awe1.html
Dear all,
just to say thanks to Andy and Piers for chairing last nights YNiC ASC
session; a digest of which will be forwarded to the User list in due course.
Given that we gave everyone the option to leave at 5pm, but everyone
stayed until 5.30, I'll interpret it to have been and success! It was
good that it generated so much discussion. On which note, would anyone
like to volunteer to chair the next YNiC ASC session? If so, send an
email to the ynic-users stating the topic for discussion, and the date
on which you would like to hold the session. I look forward to hearing
from you all ...
thanks,
Michael
--
Dr Michael Simpson
Science Liaison Officer
York Neuroimaging Centre
Innovation Way
York
YO10 5DG
Tel: 01904 567614
Web: http://www.ynic.york.ac.uk
Hi, all,
This is just a reminder that tomorrow (Thursday) at 4PM, MSC students
will be giving presentations at YNiC.
Everyone is welcome
Silvia Gennari
Department of Psychology
University of York
York, YO10 5DD
United Kingdom
Dear All
I will attempt to chair a discussion this Wednesday (11th) at 4pm on
virtual electrode analysis in MEG. The meeting is the first of the
proposed YNiC Analysis Support Colloquia looking at current and
future needs for data analysis (MRI as well as MEG). The meeting
will take place in the Psychology
lecture theatre (B020), NOT in YNiC.
Virtual electrode analyses probe individual points in the brain.
They potentially allow you to chart the response at that location
over time, taking full advantage of the capacity of MEG to record
changes over time with millisecond accuracy. Some of us feel,
possibly naively, that the ability to do virtual electrode analyses
at a group as well as an individual level is all that stands between
us and world domination.
Piers will begin by demonstrating some group level analyses that he
and colleagues have done as part of an MEG study that included
written words, consonant strings and faces as stimuli. The aim of
the session, however, is not to discuss the meaning of different
studies, but what what forms of virtual electrode analysis are
possible, and what we could hope to learn from them.
If you have attempted any virtual electrode analyses, or think that
you may want to do some in future, please bring them along. Anyone
who has any results to share is welcome to bring along some slides.
So that's Wednesday at 4pm in Psychology B020.
Andy
--
Professor Andy Ellis
Department of Psychology
University of York
York YO10 5DD
England
Tel. +44 (0)1904 433140
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/psych/www/people/biogs/awe1.html