Covered so far
| Lecture | Topics covered | Textbook references |
|---|---|---|
| 1/2 | Biological introduction, neurons, ion pumps, ion channels, spikes, synapses. | D&A pp5-7, note 3/5. |
| 3 | Background: pictures from the web and videos from youtube. | See Gallery |
| 4/5 | Synapses, different synapses, inhibition and excitation. Recap of Boltzmann's law, typical voltage, capacitance, resistance and the typical sub-threshold timescale. Start of equilibrium potential. | D&A s5.2 |
| 6 | Background: guest lecture by Hugh Garavan from TCIN/Psychology about neuroimaging and neurobiology. | Hugh Garavan |
| 7/8 | Equilibrium equation and the Nearst equation, the leak current, the potassium and sodium currents, persistient and transient gates, the equations for n, m and h. The Hodgkin-Huxley equation. Informal class survey. | D&A ss5.2/5.5/5.6, note 4. |
| 9 | Reponse to class survey. Graphs of n, m and h and of HH spikes. | Notes 1/2 |
| 10/11 | Bank holiday. | |
| 12 | Mention of the cable equations. Integrate and Fire neurons. | D&A s6.3 (cables) and s5.4 (I&F) |
| 13/14 | More integrate and fire neurons, refactory currents. Modelling synapses. | D&A s5.4 and s5.8, note 6. |
| 15 | Modelling synapses. | D&A s5.8 |
| 16/17 | Cancelled because of SFI summit | |
| 18 | Problem sheet 1 solutions. | PS1 |
| 19/20 | Introduction to the decoding section; S->stuff->R, some examples. Start of a discussion of firing rates. | Pillow Et Al (2008). D&A s1.2, first page or so. |
| 21/22/23 | More on firing rates: smoothing with a kernel. Tuning curves. Weber's law. Spike Triggered Average. | D\&A ss2.1/2.2 and D\&A 1.3 |
| 24 | Start of the linear model. | D\&A s2.4 |
| 25/26 | The linear model; introduction, relationship to the the Voltera expansion. Calculation of the kernel. Reverse correllation. Relationship with correllations. | D\&A ss2.4/2.9A |
| 27 | Background discussion: auditory processing in zebra finch. | Sen Et Al (2001), Theunissen Et Al (2000). |
| 28/29 | The Poisson distribution: homogeneous case. Fano factor. Inhomogeneous Poisson process. Start of plasticity. | D\&A s1.4 |
| 30 | Problem sheet 2 solutions. | PS2 |
| 31/32 | Plasticity, Hebbs rule, rate based examples. Spike Timing dependent plasticity. | D\&A ss8.1/8.2 pp291/292 |
| 33 | Guest lecture by Richard Reilly. | Richard Reilly |
The new improved format of the lecture list page is due to Rupert Levene.
Notes The course follows D&A in material but not in sequence.
- After the introduction we do neuroelectrodynamics, chapter 5 of D&A, and the go back and cover the earlier material about coding and decoding.
- When studying neuroelectrodynamics, we skip the integrate and fire model and go straight to Hodgkin and Huxley and even its extensions (5.5, 5.6 and a bit of chapter 6) before going back to the integrate and fire (5.4).
- When doing coding and decoding we skip around a bit, leaving out Poisson Statistics, which are done later.
- After coding and decoding we skip forward to plasticity.