<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
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
Dear all,
This is just to confirm that Andy Ellis will be chairing the first YNiC
Analysis Support Colloquia on Wednesday February 13th. The session will
take place in B020 at 4pm.
Andy will forward an agenda in due course which will detail the specific
questions he will raise in the session. However, following his previous
mailing to ynic-users, the general topic of the session will be Virtual
Electrode Analysis of MEG data.
We look forward to seeing you there. Here's hoping for a good turnout at
the inaugural session of what we hope will be a mutually beneficial
series of colloquia.
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 all,
this is just a reminder that the MEG masterclass will take place
tomorrow. A number of you contacted Andre at the start of the
masterclasses to let him know that you are likely to attend these
sessions. If you haven't previously let him know of your interest for
the MEG class, and would like to attend, please contact *me* so that we
can have a rough idea of numbers.
The session will take place from 2.30 till 5.00 in Open Plan.
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
----------------------------
Plastic bags and paper work have been left on the bed in the MRI corridor.
Please ensure that your projects are aware that this is a clinical area
and needs to remain clean and tidy.
Will you please also remind students that any scrubs worn need to be put
in the laundry bin.
Thank you