Lecture + Tutorial, Summer 2013 Computational Neuroscience: Acquisition and Analysis of Neural Data Richard Kempter, Benjamin Blankertz

Lecture: Richard Kempter, Benjamin Blankertz
Tutorial on spike trains: Nikolay Chenkov, Jose Donoso, and Jorge Jaramillo.
Tutorial on EEG data: Benjamin Blankertz

Date: From 12-April-2013 to 12-July-2013.

Location: Lectures and tutorials take place at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin.

Times:
Lectures (2 SWS, 2 ECTS): Fridays from 09:15 am to 10:45 am, Lecture Hall 102, Haus 6
Tutorials (2 SWS, 5 ECTS): Fridays from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm, Computer Pool, Haus 2

Target Group: Students of Computational Neuroscience, Medical Neuroscience, Biology, Biophysics, Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science.

Requirements: Basic knowledge in Neurobiology and Mathematics at the level of the first year of the Masters Program in Computational Neuroscience.

Topics: This course is the second part of the module ''Acquisition and Analysis of Neural Data'' of the Master Program in Computational Neuroscience, and this second part focuses on statistical analyses of neural data:

(1) Statistical analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) data, e.g., forward calculation; investigation of event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related desynchronization (ERD); spatial filters; classification. Please click here for details on the this part.

(2) Analysis of spike trains (spike statistics, neural coding, theory of point processes, linear systems theory, correlation analysis, spike-triggered average, reverse correlation, STRF, neural decoding, signal detection theory, information theory, signal-to-noise ratio analysis). This Moodle Course provides details on the tutorials.

Course Certificates: To obtain a course certificate, at least 75% of the points in the weekly exercises must be obtained.

Projects: To obtain the full 5 ECTS for the tutorial, students have to complete an additional small project (2 ECTS). Project topics will be distributed by Richard Kempter in June 2013. Pairs of students should work on a project in parallel to the lecture series and/or in the lecture-free time. Project reports must be tuned in latest by August 15, 2013. The report should comprise a self-contained single PDF file including a short Introduction, a Results/Discussion section, labeled Figures with caption, and the program code as an attachment. Reports shall be written according to the Guidelines for Writing a Scientific Report; maximum length is six pages (excluding attachments).

You can use any programming language/environment you wish (MatLab, Python, Mathematica, C++, etc.).

Reports will be evaluated. A positively evaluated report is a prerequisite for registration to the oral exam! Please consider that corrections might become necessary, and the corrected report needs to be evaluated again before the registration to the oral exam.

Exam: The final oral exam on the module "Acquisition and Analysis of Neuronal Data" will take place on September 24, 2013.

Background material for the analysis of spike trains:
P. Dayan and L.F. Abbott (2001) Theoretical Neuroscience. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.