BMEB W4011 Computational Neuroscience I: Circuits in the Brain

Course Benefits

Professor Lazar

Applicable Degree Programs

Most courses 4000-level and above can be credited to all degree programs. All courses are subject to advisor approval.
Lecturer Professor Aurel A. Lazar
Office hours: Fridays, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, EST, Room 819 CEPSR
Email addresses: aurel "at" ee.columbia.edu
Class Web Site: Offered by the CourseWorks
Mailing list:
TA: Eftychios-Aristodimos Pnevmatikakis
TA Email address: eap2111 "at" columbia.edu
Recitation:
Day and time: Fridays, 9:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Class location: 415 Schapiro (CEPSR)
Credits for course: 3 points
Prerequisites: ELEN E3801 (Signals and Systems) or Biology W3004 (plus Matlab) or the instructor's approval.
Description: Modeling Biological Neurons, The Hudgkin-Huxley Neuron, Modeling and Analysis of Ion Channels, Integrate-and-Fire and other Spiking Neuron Models, Stimulus Representation and the Neural Code, Time Encoding and Stimulus Recovery, Information Representation with Time Encoding Machines, Fast Algorithms for Stimulus Recovery, Elements of Spike Processing and Neural Computation, Modeling Synapses and Synaptic Transmission, Synaptic Plasticity and Learning Algorithms.
Required text(s): Daniel Johnston and Samuel Miao-Sin Wu, Foundations of Cellular Neurophysiology, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995.
Reference text(s): Peter Dayan and L.F. Abbott, Theoretical Neuroscience, The MIT Press, 2001.
W. Gerstner and W. Kistler, Spiking Neuron Models Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2002.
Reference (cont'd): Izhikevich E.M., Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience: The Geometry of Excitability and Bursting, The MIT Press, Fall 2005. Christof Koch, Biophysics of Computation, Information Processing in Single Neurons, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 1999.
Reference (cont'd): F.M. Rieke, D. Warland, R. de Ruyter van Steveninck, W. Bialek, Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1997.
Peter M. Trappenberg, Fundamentals of Computational Neuroscience, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Reference (cont'd): Hugh R. Wilson, Spikes, Decisions and Actions, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Homework(s): 6, mostly writting or adapting simple Matlab code.
Paper(s): ---
Project(s): 2 major projects.
Midterm exam: ---
Final exam: Take Home Exam is due December 16, 2005, at 12 noon.
Grading: 1/6 homework, 1/3 projects, 1/2 final.
Hardware requirements: Laptop for demos.
Software requirements: Matlab (student version).
Homework submission: Mondays at noon

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