CNS Course @ BSCS`06

This year Tamás Kiss gives the Computational Neuroscience course at the BSCS. Below are the syllabus of the course and some other downloadable material for the students.

Syllabus

Monday: An Introduction to Computational Neuroscience and the Modelling of Nerve Cells

  1. General introduction to the subject of Computational Neuroscience and its history. Short introduction to the anatomy and cellular basis of the nervous system.
  2. Basics of nerve cell electrochemistry and electrophysiology. Conductance based models of neurons.
  3. Parallel conductance model. Mechanism of action potential generation. The Hodgkin-Huxley model. Ionic currents, ion channels, gate kinetics.

Tuesday: Mathematical Analysis of Neuron Models

  1. Introduction to differential equations and the theory of dynamical systems.
  2. Simplified neuron models. Simplifications of the Hodgkin-Huxley model: the FitzHugh-Nagumo-Rinzel model, phase-space analysis. Explanation of bursting by bifurcation analysis. Abstract models: phase model, rate model, McCulloch-Pitts neuron, integrate & fire neuron model
  3. Beyond the Hodgkin-Huxley model. Diverse voltage- and ligand gated kinetics in single-compartment models. Role of cellular morphology, dendritic effects. What is detailed modeling good for? Taxonomy of neuron models.

Wednesday: Learning in Neural Systems and an Application in Navigation

  1. Synapses and synaptic plasticity. Detailed, simplified and phenomenological models of synaptic func­tion.
  2. Cellular bases of learning: synaptic plasticity. The Hebbian rule of learning. Variations for the Hebbian rule. Long term synaptic potentiation and depression. Synaptic plasticity on different time scales. Meta-plasticity. Basics of modelling neural networks. The two (three) levels of neural dynamics. Learning rules: reinforcement, supervised and unsupervised learning. Basic neural architectures: feed-forward and feed-back structures, lateral connections, attractor networks.
  3. The hippocampus: modelling memory and spatial navigation. Oscillations in memory models. Place cells and place fields. Phase and rate coding. Grid cells. Navigation strategies and some of their models.

Thursday: Computational Neuroscience in Action

  1. An introduction to the use of some software packages for neural simulations (octave, XPPAut, GENESIS)

Friday: Exams

Downloadable materials