Analyses of Neuronal Function
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Offered in Term 2 on M,W from 1:15-2:45pm in room S640 (Course #GS-NE-431)
This course will cover all basic aspects of the intrinsic electrophysiological properties of neurons and of synaptic transmission. It will also introduce principles of synaptic integration and plasticity. Topics covered include: the resting membrane potential, passive spread of membrane signals, structure and function of voltage gated and ligand gated ion channels, active electrogenic properties of dendrites and axons, mechanisms of action potential conduction, presynaptic mechanisms of neurotransmitter vesicle filling, storage, exocytosis and endocytosis, neurotransmitter transporters and clearance, postsynaptic receptors and signal transduction pathways, synaptic structure and dynamics.
(Course Director: Paul Pfaffinger, Ph.D.)
Anatomy & Development of the Nervous System
Offered Term 2 – M,W, F 3:45–4:45 p.m. in room N317 (Course #GS-NE-470J)
Anatomy and Development of the Nervous System is designed to introduce the graduate
student to the basic structure and function of the nervous system, and describe its rough
development. It is intended for first year graduate students without any specific advanced
knowledge of neuroscience. It should be readily accessible to all graduate students at Baylor
College of Medicine, but it is a required core course for Neuroscience graduate students. The
first 10 lectures in the course cover the basic anatomy of the nervous system, starting with
somatosensory pathways, then moving to motor control systems. We next cover the anatomy
of the auditory, visual and olfactory systems before discussing the limbic forebrain and
cerebral cortex. The second half of the class covers development of the nervous system,
starting with neuronal induction, differentiation and migration. We then cover axon guidance,
target recognition and synapse formation and elimination before finishing with a discussion of
neural circuit development.
(Course Directors: Bob Thalmann, Ph.D. and Matthew N. Rasband, Ph.D.)
Brain Imaging from Cell to System
Offered 3rd & 4th Terms, T, Th; – 2-3:30pm in room S-744 (Course #GS-NE-444)
Brain Imaging from Cell to System includes two main parts: Optical Imaging and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Each part includes an Introductory Review where quantum leaps of these exciting technologies are revisited and a number of Lectures where underlying principles and specific technologies are presented. Related homework problems will be distributed during every lecture.
(Course Director: Peter Saggau, Ph.D.)
Cellular Neurophysiology
Offered Term 4 every other year Spring 2012, 2014..... T, Th 3:30-5 p.m. in room N317 (Course #GS-NE-464)
This course provides a general background in cellular neurophysiology with an emphasis on an
understanding of the properties of excitable nerve membranes and chemical synapses. The
first part of the course covers the theory of ions in solutions, ion conduction through
membranes, ion transport and distribution, nonlinear properties of neurons, nerve excitation
and conduction, and stochastic properties of single ion channels. The second part of the
course covers linear cable theory, multiple types of voltage-gated conductances, synaptic
transmission including, quantal analysis; the role of calcium and transmitter release, various
forms of synaptic plasticity.
(Course Director: Sam Wu, Ph.D.)
Concepts of Learning and Memory
Offered 4th Term, M,W,F; 9-10 a.m. in room N-317 (Course #GS-NE-462J)
This course is designed to introduce graduate students to the field of learning and memory. This field has exploded in the last few years with the introduction of new techniques, new approaches, and new concepts. The course will introduce the student to classical and modern concepts of learning and memory across all levels at which learning and memory is studied, inlcuding behavioral, anatomical, cellular, molecular and genetic levels of analysis. The basic concepts of learning and memory will also be related to known diseases of learning and memory. 3 credits
(Course Directors: Mauro Costa-Mattioli, Ph.D. and Daoyun Ji, Ph.D.)
Developmental Brain Disorders
Offered Term 4 – M,W 3–4:30 p.m. in room N317 (Course #GS-NE-437)
This course will focus on developmental brain disorders, such as Fragile X syndrome, Rett syndrome, disorders of neuronal migration and heritable epilepsies. Lectures and Discussions will focus on the molecular basis of these disorders and understanding how these molecular abnormalities produce neurological deficits. Emphasis will also be placed on discussing potential therapeutics through an understanding of the molecular basis of the disease.
The goals of the course will be:
- To instruct graduate students in the medical aspects of developmental brain disorders
- To instruct medical students in the scientific approaches used to study developmental brain disorders
- To instruct both sets of students in the most current understanding of molecular pathobiology and to increase awareness of and interest in translational research as applied to these diseases.
(Course Director: John Swann, Ph.D.)
Genetics for Neuroscience
Offered Term 3 – T, Th 1:30–3 p.m. in room S640 (Course #GS-NE-441)
This course integrates Genetics into Neuroscience and is intended to teach neuroscience students how to tackle neurobiological problems using genetic strategies and tools. In the introduction, students will be exposed to the basic concepts in genetics. After this introductory lecture, we will explain the advantages and approaches used in invertebrate model organisms, C. elegans and D. melanogaster. This will focus on different genetic, cell biological and neurobiological tools available in these organisms and will cover 5 lectures. In the 2nd part, we will switch to vertebrate genetics, focusing on mouse genetics, highlighting the different techniques and approaches commonly in the mouse and finally we will discuss genetic approaches in humans in the last 2 lectures.
(Course Director: Herman Dierick, Ph.D. - Co-Director: Benjamin Deneen, Ph.D.)
Higher Brain Function
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Offered Term 4 – T, Th 2-3:30 p.m. in room S640 (Course #GS-NE-434)
This course discusses aspects of systems’ neuroscience related to higher brain function. In the first part of the course, the role of the limbic system in higher brain functions such as memory, attention, and emotions is considere d. The second part of the course covers the role of the extended amygdala and the mesolimbic system in reward and addiction. Part III of the course will engage students in discussion of human brain processes including decision making, goal directed learning and the representation of self and others.
(Course Director: Mariella De Biasi, Ph.D.)
Introduction to fMRI
Offered Term 1&2 – Mon 2:00–5:00 p.m. at Rm. B.100(UT MSB), 6431 Fannin St (GS-NE-439)
The course is a combination of didactic lectures on fMRI, reviews of the published literature, and small group discussion. Students work in small groups to design an fMRI experiment on a topic of interest. Practical advice on designing and conducting fMRI experiments are emphasized.
(Course Director - Michael Beauchamp, Ph.D.)
Introduction to Neuroscience Methods
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Offered Term 1 - T,TH 10-11:30 a.m. in room S640 ((Course #GS-NE-428)
This course provides an introduction to the recording of signals from live neurons using microscopic and electrophysiologic methods. The course introduces the basics of instrumentation in the recording of real time biological signals. We then show how these principles are applied in the design and execution of microscopy and electrophysiology experiments on live neurons in culture and acute neuronal slices. The course is designed to run in parallel with a lab course.
(Course Director - Wei Ji Ma, Ph.D.)
Introduction to Neuroscience Methods Lab
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Offered Term 1 – M or W 9a.m.–12p.m. in room S640 (Course #350-429)
This is the laboratory course that is designed to run in parallel with the Introductory Neuroscience Methods lecture course. The lab is designed to give students hands on experience applying the ideas for real time recording of microscopic and neurophysiological signals. This course will prepare the students to directly apply what they have learned in the lecture course to their actual application in under real experimental conditions.
(Course Director – Wei Ji Ma, Ph.D.)
Introduction to Statistical Computing and Modeling
Offered Term 4 – M,W,F 2–4p.m. in room HNL Conference room S104 (Course #350-425)
The course provides a collection of basic and useful quantitative skills which nearly all graduate students need. Use of MATLAB, data reduction techniques (e.g. principal components analysis), factorization methods (e.g. singular value decomposition), spectral methods, classification techniques (cluster analysis, support vector machines, etc.), and an introduction to Bayesian inference and modeling. This course is ‘hands-on’ and will use two or three basic data sets derived from human imaging experiments. The same data sets will be used throughout the entire course to facilitate familiarity with the data and therefore focus students on the techniques being taught. Although neuroimaging data will be used, the techniques learned are applicable to a wide range of data types including biochemical networks, gene networks, and general signal processing. The course starts at ‘ground zero’ and introduces MATLAB from a naïve user’s perspective.
(Course Director - TBD)
Law, Brains & Behavior
Offered Term 1 & 2 – M 6:30 – 9:30pm at Rice University (GS-NE-438)
This course addresses how new discoveries in neuroscience will intersect with the making of law, the punishment of criminals, and the development of new rehabilitation strategies. The readings will bring together a unique conjunction of neurobiology, legal scholarship, and policy making. The goals of the course will be to facilitate an understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings of behaviors that are subject to legal consequences for individuals and groups, and using this emerging base of scientific information to design modern, evidence-based policy.
Emerging questions at the interface of law and neuroscience include: Is it a legitimate defense to claim that a tumor or a brain injury ‘made you do it’? In what ways are the brains of minors similar or different from adult brains in their capacity for decision-making and impulse control – and how do those similarities/differences help inform policy for punishment and rehabilitation? Can modern technologies such as structural and/or functional brain imaging be leveraged for rehabilitation? Who should have access to information about our brains? How should juries assess responsibility, given that most behaviors are driven by systems of the brain that we cannot control?
In conjunction with currently available literature on the topic, individual student projects will study and develop suggestions for new experiments and evidence-based policy. An example would be designing experiments that could identify neural signatures predictive of recidivism, and developing the policy structures in which these predictions should be used.
(Course Director: David Eagleman, Ph.D.)
Neurobiology of Sensation and Movement
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Offered Term 3 – M,W,F 4:00–5:00 p.m. in room S640 (Course #GS-NE-433)
This course provides an overview of basic Systems Neuroscience from a modern perspective. The course covers the mechanisms of sensory transduction in various modalities, the development and organization of sensory pathways using the visual system as an example, the control and execution of motor programs at various levels of the central nervous system and their final transduction in motor actions. In addition, the course covers the relation between neural activity and sensory perception as well as higher cognitive processes (e.g., working memory, attention) using several well-studied examples. Finally, the course provides an introduction to how sensory information is processed within nervous systems at the network and single cell level, as well as how that processing leads to specific motor actions.
(Course Director: Fabrizio Gabbiani, Ph.D.)
Neurobiology of Disease
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Offered Term 4 – F 3–5p.m. in room S640 (Course #GS-NE-422)
This course covers some of the most important and scientifically tractable disorders of nervous system function. The course will expose the students to the incidence, clinical manifestations, pathophysiology and current scientific models of the causes and mechanisms of disorders of the adult brain. The course is a problem-based small group session that is largely taught through guided formal presentations. The first hour of each disease related section is a lecture and interactive discussion that introduces the clinical presentation of the disease, its etiology, epidemiology, and current treatment strategies. In the second hour, the lecture then introduces advances made in the scientific understanding of the disease mechanisms at the genetic, molecular, cellular and systems’ level. Research papers that have led to a conceptual breakthrough in understanding the disease are given as course reading materiel. They include animal models or human studies or a combination of the two. Each section concludes with an open group discussion with the mentor faculty present to facilitate and guide the discussion.
The course is mandatory for first year Neuroscience students and may be taken as an elective by other students. Topics covered include: stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, seizure disorders, brain tumors, multiple sclerosis,, brain and spinal cord injury, addiction, depression and schizophrenia.
(Course Director: Jeffrey Noebels, M.D.)
Physiology of the Visual System
Offered Term 4 every other year Spring 2013, 2015..... T,Th; 3-4:30 p.m. in room S744 (Course #GS-NE-424)
The purpose of this elective course is to provide an advanced level and comprehensive coverage of the physiology of the retina and visual cortex. The visual system is perhaps the most well-understood part of the brain, and research on the eye and central visual pathways have been a major emphasis of Baylor for many years. There are more than 30 research projects, a training grant and a Core grant funded by the National Eye Institute at Baylor. Yet not a single advanced level course about the visual system (except very brief coverage in the Medical Neuroscience and Integrative Neuroscience courses) have been offered by the College. The purpose of this elective course is to fill this gap by providing an advanced level and comprehensive coverage of the physiology of the visual system. This course will be useful for graduate students and postdocs in neuroscience, physiology, biochemistry, cell biology and molecular genetics who are interested in visual information processing and brain function. This course will be offered even years only.
(Course Director: Samuel Wu, Ph.D.)
Theoretical Neuroscience: Cells, Circuits and Systems
Offered 1st & 2nd Terms, T,Th; 9:25-10:40 a.m. at Rice University (Course #GS-NE-426)
Biophysical Modeling and Computation from Cell to Network
This course introduces current theoretical methods used to model the properties of nerve cells and the processing of information by neuronal networks. Concrete examples that can be implemented using Matlab will be emphasized. The starting point is the passive cable properties of single neurons and the Hodgkin-Huxley model of action potential generation. Subsequently, models of synaptic transmission and active properties of dendritic trees will be considered. This will be followed by stochastic properties of single neurons and information encoding using mean and instantaneous firing rate in visual neurons. Finally, methods to analyze phase-locking and activity in populations of cells as well as learning algorithms will be considered. 6 credits
(Course Directors: Fabrizio Gabbiani, Ph.D. [Baylor] and Steve Cox, Ph.D. [Rice University])
Theoretical Neuroscience: Learning, Perception and Cognition
Offered 3rd & 4th Terms, T, Th; 9:25-10:40 a.m. in Keck Hall Room 105, Rice University (Course #GS-NE-446)
This self-contained course is intended for graduate students, postdocs, and advanced undergraduates interested in the modeling of neural systems and behavior, with an emphasis on learning, perception, and cognition. It is also suitable for students in physics, computer science, engineering, statistics, applied mathematics, and related fields who are considering working on problems in neuroscience.
The course will have two instructors: Wei Ji Ma and Harel Shouval.
Ma: A core function of the brain is to infer the state of the world from noisy and ambiguous sensory evidence. This process – perception – can be modeled both at a behavioral and at a neural level. At the behavioral level, a highly successful approach has been to regard the brain as a system that performs probabilistic inference, i.e. makes its best guess given the statistical structure of the task and the observations. This approach allows to quantitatively predict human decisions in behavioral experiments. At the neural level, we will study how populations of neurons encode stimuli and how this information is used in perceptual computation. We will discuss how the behavioral and neural levels might be related.
Shouval: Synaptic plasticity is the change in synaptic connections between two neurons due to the activity of one or both of these neurons. It is believed to be the basis of learning, memory and some forms of brain development. The course will study both abstract models and biophysical models of synaptic plasticity. Abstract models of synaptic plasticity demonstrate how the concept of synaptic plasticity can contribute to different forms of learning, memory and development. Biophysical models of synaptic plasticity are based on actual cellular and molecular mechanisms observed in neurons and demonstrate how synaptic plasticity can arise from real biological mechanisms. “
(Course Director: Wei Ji Ma, Ph.D.)
Neuropharmacology
Offered 3rd Term, 2-3:30 p.m. in room S744 (Course #370-425J)
The objectives of this course are to examine how pharmacological agents have been used to elucidate the function of neurotransmitter systems in the central nervous system. In addition, the mechanism of some clinically effective drugs are reviewed in terms of the structure and function of the brain. The textbook used for this class will be Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience, by Nestler, Hyman and Malenka. 3 credits.
(Course Director: Mariella De Biasi, Ph.D.)
Research Rotations
These courses are intended to develop laboratory skills in the various research areas represented in the program. Local expertise will be employed to: 1) give the student specific technical skills, and/or 2) facilitate the student's choice of research area appropriate for a dissertation.
Special Topics: How to give effective oral presentations and prepare for oral qualifying exam - Course offered 3rd Term in room S-640, days and times TBD (Course #GS-NE-463)
Communication of concepts and ideas is an important element of working in the academic and scientific communities. Acquisition of skills having to do with written communication is stressed in most graduate programs, but the application of these same concepts to verbal communication is often neglected - even though the oral presentation arguably is the most common format for communication in these professional settings. A passive approach to learning how to make a presentation is typical, with an assumption that good presentations either occur naturally or are easy to imitate. These assumptions are not always valid, as illustrated by the wide range in quality of scientific presentations.
The long-term goal of this course is to help participants become practiced in developing strategies for formulating and delivering oral presentations. The immediate goal is to prepare second year graduate students for their oral qualifying exams. First year students may select any topic for their presentation, but second year students are encouraged to present the research material that will be part of their oral qualifying exam. Each participant will prepare and present one 30 minute presentation, and there will be questions from the audience. Following the presentation, the speaker will receive feedback from the audience. Discussions conducted in these settings will provide valuable insights to novice presenters. 1 credit
(Mariella DeBiasi, Ph.D.)
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