The fourth edition of the Transylvanian Experimental Neuroscience Summer School

May 10th, 2015

The fourth edition of TENSS will take place between June 1-19, 2015. 150 students from 42 countries have applied for one of the 13 available places.

Confirmed lecturers

  • Acsády, László – Institute of Experimental Medicine, Budapest, Hungary
  • Albeanu, Florin – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
  • Battaglia, Francesco – Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
  • Bhalla, Upinder – National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India
  • Burrone, Juan – King’s College, London, UK
  • Engert, Florian – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • Gradinaru, Viviana – California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
  • Häusser, Michael – University College, London, UK
  • Hofer, Sonja – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
  • Hromádka, Tomáš – Institute of Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic
  • Hübener, Mark – Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany
  • Ji, Na – Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm, VA, USA
  • Kampff, Adam – Champalimaud Foundation, Institute for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal & University College London, UK
  • Keller, Georg – Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland
  • Monyer, Hannah – University of Heidelberg, Germany
  • Mrsic-Flögel, Tom – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
  • Mureşan, Raul – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • Murthy, Venkatesh – Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • Nikolić, Danko – Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany
  • Roska, Botond – Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland
  • Rumpel, Simon – Institute for Molecular Pathology, Vienna, Austria
  • Singer, Wolf – Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany
  • Whitlock, Jonathan – Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Trondheim, Norway

Organizers

  • Mureşan, Raul – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • Kampff, Adam – Champalimaud Foundation, Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal & University College London, UK
  • Albeanu, Florin – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA

Teaching assistants

  • Campbell, Rob – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland
  • Dăbâcan, Adriana – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • Dreosti, Elena – University College London, UK
  • Gupta, Priyanka – National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India & CSHL, NY, USA
  • Hangya, Balázs – Institute of Experimental Medicine, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
  • Moca, Vasile – Coneural, Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
  • Modi, Mehrab N. – Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY, USA
  • Lopes, Gonçalo – Champalimaud Foundation, Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
  • Sanders, Joshua – Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience, Aarhus, Denmark
  • Znamenskiy, Petr – Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland

Topics

  • Basic Optics – Diffraction and Resolution. Illumination Techniques. Numerical Aperture.
  • Optical bench exercises – Lenses, optical systems, illumination methods, basic microscopy techniques. How to custom build different kinds of microscopes.
  • Noise measurements and photo-sensors – Shot noise, optical detectors, amplifiers, NI-DAQ, CCD cameras, photodiodes, photo multiplier tubes (PMTs).
  • Light and fluorescence microscopy – Fluorescence, FRAP, photo-activation, photo-conversion. Point spread function measurements, basic image analysis (deconvolution, denoising, PCA).
  • Fluorescence probes – GFP, GFP based chromophores, organic calcium dyes, genetically encoded calcium dyes, pHluorins, voltage sensitive dyes.
  • Intrinsic Optical Imaging – Visual, auditory & barrel cortex; olfactory bulb. Students will build a custom wide field fluorescence and intrinsic optical imaging rig.
  • Scanning microscopy – Confocal and two-photon microscopy. LASERs. Introduction to Labview. Students will build a two-photon microscope and write custom scanning and acquisition software in Labiew. Open source systems.
  • Viral approaches to label, monitor and alter neuronal circuits.
  • Optogenetics – Light activated ion channels and pumps. Patterned photo-stimulation techniques.
  • Benchtop electronics and basic electrophysiology – Impedence and Dipoles. Amplifiers. Extracellular and intracellular recordings. LFP; single unit, multi-unit extracellular recordings, tetrodes, electrode arrays; patch clamp.
  • Awake head fixed and freely moving optical and electrophysiological recording strategies in rodents – Microdrives. Fiber optic based systems. Open source systems.
  • Techniques for electrophysiological data analysis.
  • Monitoring animal behavior – Open Source tools for acquisition and analysis of video data. Intro to Python and Arduino. Training Strategies. Closed loop systems.
  • Neuronal functional connectivity and neuronal connectomics – Serial electron-microscopy and trans-synaptic labeling methods.
  • Synchrony and oscillations.
  • Cortical attention, sparse neuronal codes.
  • Decision making, uncertainty, neuro-modulatory systems.

See the school’s website