IAP Independent Activities Period
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IAP 2012 Activities by Sponsor

Brain and Cognitive Sciences

A Look Inside the Human Brain
Dimitrios Pantazis, Christina Triantafyllou, Quanzheng Li
Wed, Fri, Jan 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27, 12:30-02:00pm, 46-3015

Enrollment limited: first come, first served
Limited to 30 participants.
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

Modern imaging technologies at MIT and MGH provide exciting new ways to understand the structure and function of the human brain. We will provide guided tours to our imaging facilities and show how we use these tools to look inside the brain. Our recently installed MEG scanner, capable of measuring magnetic fields a billionth of the magnetic field of earth, can record the simultaneous firing of thousands of cortical neurons as they form dynamic networks. Our MRI scanner provides high resolution images of the human brain as subjects are exposed to a wide variety of visual, auditory, and somatosensory stimuli. Our PET scanners can reveal molecular events of normal and diseased brain that are the intrinsic basis of pathology of all kinds of brain functions. We will introduce these technologies, discuss their contribution to neuroscience, and talk about their potential for future improvement.
Web: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/project/insidehumanbrai/
Contact: Dimitrios Pantazis, 46-511A, 715-4330, pantazis@mit.edu

BrainNavigator: Hands-On Introduction and Demo
Courtney Crummett
Thu Jan 19, 10-11:30am, 14N-132 (DIRC)

Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Limited to 20 participants.
Single session event

BrainNavigator integrates accurate content and innovative tools to improve the productivity, efficiency and quality of research. It helps locate specific areas of the brain, making visualizing and experimental planning in the brain easier. Class attendees will learn how to access high resolution images, identify coordinates and calibrate those coordinates to their own animals, link their own images to BrainNavigator atlases, count cells using the cell marker tool, overlay schematic drawing onto atlas stained sections or their own images, and use the injection planner.

The session is a hands-on practicum. The training room has 20 PC terminals and a large table in the back for laptop use. Please register at http://libraries.mit.edu/sites/events/?p=349.
Web: http://libraries.mit.edu/get/brainnav
Contact: Courtney Crummett, 14S-134, x4-8290, crummett@mit.edu
Cosponsor: Libraries

Building Your Own Neuroscience Lab
Daniel Bendor, Carme Varela, Josh Siegle
Thu Jan 12, 19, 26, Feb 2, 03-06:00pm, 46-4062

Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 03-Jan-2012
Limited to 20 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)

In this four-part course, you will learn how to build your own neuroscience lab, where you can collect data from living neurons, build a setup (from scratch) to collect behavioral data, and then analyze and plot this data in MATLAB. In the second class, you will have the opportunity to perform your own neural recordings in an anesthetized insect. In the third class, you will learn the basics of using an Arudino (http://www.arduino.cc), a microcontroller that allows you to control motors and sensors with your computer. Using the Arduino you will build a basic setup for running behavioral experiments. In the fourth class you will learn how to use MATLAB both for data analysis and to automate your experiments.


No previous experience in neuroscience, computer programming, or using MATLAB or an Arudino is required for this class. No purchase of equipment is required for this class.
Contact: Daniel Bendor, 46-5233, x2-1841, dbendor@mit.edu

High-level Visual Behaviors of the Fruit Fly Drosophila
Andrew Straw, Gadi Geiger, Tomaso Poggio
Mon-Fri, Jan 9-13, 17-20, 10am-02:00pm, 46-3189

Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Limited to 20 participants.

Scientific background

The brain of a fly is capable of steering the animal through a complex environment at high relative speeds, avoiding stationary obstacles and moving predators. Because it is relatively easy to study how flies do this at several levels from the behavioral to the cellular, fly vision has long been recognized as an ideal system to address a fundamental question in neuroscience -- how does the distributed activity of neurons orchestrate animal-environment interactions to result in successful coordinated behavior? In this workshop we will investigate visual phenomena such as spatial attention and spatial working memory in flies. If successful, the results will inform future experiments using the molecular genetic toolbox of Drosophila to isolate the neural circuits involved and the relevant physiological mechanisms.

Applicants interested in participating in the workshop please e-mail Gadi at ggeiger@mit.edu before December 16 2011 to confirm their participation. The overview lecture will be free.
Web: http://bcs.mit.edu/BCS_IAP_2012.html
Contact: Gadi Geiger, 46-5162, x3-9646, gadi@AI.MIT.EDU

How Doctors Think: Clinical Cases from the New England Journal of Medicine
Thomas Byrne, MD
Thu Jan 12, Fri Jan 13, Thu Jan 19, Fri Jan 20, 09-11:00am, 46-3015

Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 04-Jan-2012
Limited to 30 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)

How Doctors Think: Clinical Cases from "The New England Journal of Medicine." Cases of stroke, encephalitis, paraneoplastic syndrome, and headache along with other issues will be presented.
Contact: Thomas Byrne, MD, E25-210C, x3-2829, tnbyrne@mit.edu

IIT@MITLab Workshop: Robotics and Learning Theory at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Tomaso Poggio, Lorenzo Rosasco
Thu Feb 2, 11am-01:30pm, 46-5165

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up

In this meeting we will present the core activities within IIT and in particular a recent joint laboratory with MIT (IIT@MIT Lab) focusing on computational and statistical Learning Theory

•Emilio Bizzi, Institute Professor, Founding member McGovern Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
•Roberto Cingolani, Scientific Director, Istituto Italiano di Technologia; Founder and Director of the National Nanotechnology Laboratory (NNL) of INFM, Professor of General Physics at the Engineering Faculty, University of Lecce.
•Giulio Sandini, Director of Research at the Istituto Italiano di Technologia, Director of the Robotics, Brain and Cognitive Sciences departmen, Professor of bioengineering at the University of Genoa.
•Tomaso A. Poggio, Eugene McDermott Professor, Founding member McGovern Institute, Director of CBCL, Member of CSAIL, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
•Lorenzo Rosasco, IIT@MIT Lab, Instituto Italiano di Technologia and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT.
Web: http://cbcl.mit.edu/IIT@MIT/IIT@MIT.html
Contact: Lorenzo Rosasco, 46-5162, lrosasco@mit.edu

The iCub-humanoid Robot: A Hands-on Course
Tomaso Poggio, Giorgio Metta, Lorenzo Rosasco
Mon Jan 30 thru Fri Feb 3, 09am-07:00pm, 46-3015, with an hour break at 11

Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Limited to 25 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
Prereq: For org. reasons students shld register ASAP

This course is organized as a “code sprint” to pull together all the software needed to make a humanoid work - control and perception algorithms for its head, hand, arm, legs, and full body. It is organized as a peer-to-peer event: there are little formal lectures and lot of free programming time on a real humanoid robot. All participants are expected to be competent C/C++ programmers with an interest in working with others like them. The schedule will be organized flexibly around informal tutorials. The bulk of our time will be spent working together to integrate modules and implement interesting behaviors for humanoid robots.
Web: http://icub.org/iap
Contact: Lorenzo Rosasco, 46-5162, lrosasco@mit.edu

Viewing the Subsurface: The Basics of Seismic Acquisition, Processing, and Interpretation
Jonathan Kane Shell Oil Company, Detlef Hohl, Jim Pickens, Tom Holly
Mon Jan 9, Tue Jan 10, Wed Jan 11, 09am-02:00pm, 46-1015, lunch provided

Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Limited to 30 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)

Seismic imaging is the principal method used to explore for hydrocarbons in the earth. It involves using sensors to record the response of the earth to an input source of energy, converting the raw data into an image of subsurface structures, and then interpreting the image to find oil-bearing deposits. We will cover the basics of seismic imaging over the course of 3 days, with 3 hours of instruction per day, along with in-class exercises. Lunch will be provided.

Following class on the third day we will present the "Shell IAP Challenge": an algorithm development contest for enrolled participants with a cash reward ($3000 to the winner, and $1000 to the runner up). The contest will run over the course of IAP, with the winner announced during the final week.
Contact: Jonathan Kane, E19-3419, (617) 715-5198, jakane@mit.edu


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Last update: 7 Sept. 2011