This lesson describes spike timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), a biological process that adjusts the strength of connections between neurons in the brain, and how one can implement or mimic this process in a computational model. You will also find links for practical exercises at the bottom of this page. 

This lesson provides a brief introduction to the Computational Modeling of Neuronal Plasticity.

In this lesson, you will be introducted to a type of neuronal model known as the leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) model.

This lesson goes over various potential inputs to neuronal synapses, loci of neural communication.

This lesson describes the how and why behind implementing integration time steps as part of a neuronal model.

In this lesson, you will learn about neural spike trains which can be characterized as having a Poisson distribution.

This lesson covers spike-rate adaptation, the process by which a neuron's firing pattern decays to a low, steady-state frequency during the sustained encoding of a stimulus.

This lesson provides a brief explanation of how to implement a neuron's refractory period in a computational model.

In this lesson, you will learn a computational description of the process which tunes neuronal connectivity strength, spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP).

This lesson reviews theoretical and mathematical descriptions of correlated spike trains.

This lesson investigates the effect of correlated spike trains on spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP).

This lesson goes over synaptic normalisation, the homeostatic process by which groups of weighted inputs scale up or down their biases.

In this lesson, you will learn about the intrinsic plasticity of single neurons.

This lesson covers short-term facilitation, a process whereby a neuron's synaptic transmission is enhanced for a short (sub-second) period.

This lesson describes short-term depression, a reduction of synaptic information transfer between neurons.

This lesson briefly wraps up the course on Computational Modeling of Neuronal Plasticity.

The goal of computational modeling in behavioral and psychological science is using mathematical models to characterize behavioral (or neural) data. Over the past decade, this practice has revolutionized social psychological science (and neuroscience) by allowing researchers to formalize theories as constrained mathematical models and test specific hypotheses to explain unobservable aspects of complex social cognitive processes and behaviors. This course is composed of 4 modules in the format of Jupyter Notebooks. This course comprises lecture-based, discussion-based, and lab-based instruction. At least one-third of class sessions will be hands-on. We will discuss relevant book chapters and journal articles, and work with simulated and real data using the Python programming language (no prior programming experience necessary) as we survey some selected areas of research at the intersection of computational modeling and social behavior. These selected topics will span a broad set of social psychological abilities including (1) learning from and for others, (2) learning about others, and (3) social influence on decision-making and mental states. Rhoads, S. A. & Gan, L. (2022). Computational models of human social behavior and neuroscience - An open educational course and Jupyter Book to advance computational training.  ​​​Journal of Open Source Education, 5(47), 146. https://doi.org/10.21105/jose.00146

This brief video provides a welcome and short introduction to the outline of the INCF Short Course in Neuroinformatics, held Seattle, Washington in October 2023, in coordination with the West Big Data Hub and the University of Washington. 

This lecture will provide an overview of the INCF Training Suite, a collection of tools that embraces the FAIR principles developed by members of the INCF Community. This will include an overview of TrainingSpace, Neurostars, and KnowledgeSpace.

The International Brain Initiative (IBI) is a consortium of the world’s major large-scale brain initiatives and other organizations with a vested interest in catalyzing and advancing neuroscience research through international collaboration and knowledge sharing. This workshop introduces the IBI, the efforts of the Data Standards and Sharing Working Group,  and keynote lectures on the impact of data standards and sharing on large-scale brain projects, as well as a discussion on prospects and needs for neural data sharing.