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This lesson is a general overview of overarching concepts in neuroinformatics research, with a particular focus on clinical approaches to defining, measuring, studying, diagnosing, and treating various brain disorders. Also described are the complex, multi-level nature of brain disorders and the data associated with them, from genes and individual cells up to cortical microcircuits and whole-brain network dynamics. Given the heterogeneity of brain disorders and their underlying mechanisms, this lesson lays out a case for multiscale neuroscience data integration.

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:09:33
Speaker: : Sean Hill

This lesson describes the fundamentals of genomics, from central dogma to design and implementation of GWAS, to the computation, analysis, and interpretation of polygenic risk scores. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:28:16
Speaker: : Dan Felsky

This is a hands-on tutorial on PLINK, the open source whole genome association analysis toolset. The aims of this tutorial are to teach users how to perform basic quality control on genetic datasets, as well as to identify and understand GWAS summary statistics. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:27:18
Speaker: : Dan Felsky

This is a tutorial on using the open-source software PRSice to calculate a set of polygenic risk scores (PRS) for a study sample. Users will also learn how to read PRS into R, visualize distributions, and perform basic association analyses. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:53:34
Speaker: : Dan Felsky

This lesson contains the slides (pptx) of a lecture discussing the necessary concepts and tools for taking into account population stratification and admixture in the context of genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The free-access software Tractor and its advantages in GWAS are also discussed. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration:
Speaker: : Dan Felsky

This lesson is an overview of transcriptomics, from fundamental concepts of the central dogma and RNA sequencing at the single-cell level, to how genetic expression underlies diversity in cell phenotypes. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:29:08

This is a tutorial introducing participants to the basics of RNA-sequencing data and how to analyze its features using Seurat. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:19:17
Speaker: : Sonny Chen

This tutorial demonstrates how to perform cell-type deconvolution in order to estimate how proportions of cell-types in the brain change in response to various conditions. While these techniques may be useful in addressing a wide range of scientific questions, this tutorial will focus on the cellular changes associated with major depression (MDD). 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:15:14
Speaker: : Keon Arbabi

This lesson describes the principles underlying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), tractography, and parcellation. These tools and concepts are explained in a broader context of neural connectivity and mental health. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:47:22

This lesson breaks down the principles of Bayesian inference and how it relates to cognitive processes and functions like learning and perception. It is then explained how cognitive models can be built using Bayesian statistics in order to investigate how our brains interface with their environment. 

This lesson corresponds to slides 1-64 in the PDF below. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:28:14

This lesson continues from part one of the lecture Ontologies, Databases, and Standards, diving deeper into a description of ontologies and knowledg graphs. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 50:18
Speaker: : Jeff Grethe

In this final lecture of the INCF Short Course: Introduction to Neuroinformatics, you will hear about new advances in the application of machine learning methods to clinical neuroscience data. In particular, this talk discusses the performance of SynthSeg, an image segmentation tool for automated analysis of highly heterogeneous brain MRI clinical scans.

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 1:32:01

This lesson characterizes different types of learning in a neuroscientific and cellular context, and various models employed by researchers to investigate the mechanisms involved. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 3:54
Speaker: : Dan Goodman

In this lesson, you will learn about different approaches to modeling learning in neural networks, particularly focusing on system parameters such as firing rates and synaptic weights impact a network. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 9:40
Speaker: : Dan Goodman

 In this lesson, you will learn about some of the many methods to train spiking neural networks (SNNs) with either no attempt to use gradients, or only use gradients in a limited or constrained way. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 5:14
Speaker: : Dan Goodman

In this lesson, you will learn how to train spiking neural networks (SNNs) with a surrogate gradient method. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 11:23
Speaker: : Dan Goodman

In this lesson, you will hear about some of the open issues in the field of neuroscience, as well as a discussion about whether neuroscience works, and how can we know?

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 6:54
Speaker: : Marcus Ghosh

This tutorial covers the fundamentals of collaborating with Git and GitHub.

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 2:15:50
Speaker: : Elizabeth DuPre

This lecture and tutorial focuses on measuring human functional brain networks, as well as how to account for inherent variability within those networks. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 50:44
Speaker: : Caterina Gratton

This lesson provides an overview of Jupyter notebooks, Jupyter lab, and Binder, as well as their applications within the field of neuroimaging, particularly when it comes to the writing phase of your research. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate
Duration: 50:28
Speaker: : Elizabeth DuPre