Programme

  • 23 June — 28 June 2025

  • C. W. Chu College, Chinese University of Hong Kong

  • HK$3,000 (Includes accommodation)

  • Apply by 11 April 2025

1st Day
19:00 — 22:00
Welcome reception
2nd Day
Introduction
09:00 — 10:30
Lecture 1

A crash course on the biophysics of the brain

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Lecture 2

Models of a single neuron: Biophysics of neuronal membrane; Hodgkin-Huxley model, compartment model and dendritic nonlinearity; stochastic models of spike trains; linear-nonlinear models

12:30 — 14:00
Lunch
14:00 — 15:30
Student presentations

Experimental data and/or theoretical questions that you are interested

15:30 — 16:00
Coffee break
16:00 — 17:30
Student presentations

Experimental data and/or theoretical questions that you are interested

17:30 — 18:45
Dinner
19:00 — 22:00
Math bootcamp: linear algebra; differential equations; probability
3rd Day
Neural codes
09:00 — 10:30
Lecture 1

Models of the visual system: Principles of sensory processing; receptive field; gain control; visual pathways and hierarchy

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Lecture 2

Neural coding in the visual system; computational principles of neural codes; infomax and efficient coding, sparse coding, combinatorial codes

12:30 — 14:00
Lunch
14:00 — 15:30
Lecture 3

Analysing big data in neuroscience: Nonlinear dimensionality reduction; independent component analysis (ICA); non-negative matrix factorisation (NMF); expectation-maximisation (EM) algorithm; graphical models

15:30 — 16:00
Coffee break
16:00 — 17:30
Lecture 4

Data analysis in neuroscience

17:30 — 18:45
Dinner
19:00 — 22:00
Data analysis bootcamp: information of spike trains; principal component analysis (PCA)
4th Day
Motor system and dynamics of neural circuits
09:00 — 10:30
Lecture 1

Models of the motor system: Control theories; sensory feedback; models of motor cortical activities; models of motor planning based on dynamical system theories; motor modularity

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Lecture 2

Brain-machine interfaces and robotics

12:30 — 14:00
Lunch
14:00 — 15:30
Lecture 3

Dynamics of neuronal networks: Working memory; grid cells; excitation-inhibition balance and chaos; cortical microcircuits

15:30 — 16:00
Coffee break
16:00 — 17:30
Lecture 4

Excitation-inhibition balance and chaos; cortical microcircuits

17:30 — 18:45
Dinner
19:00 — 22:00
Motor and neural circuit dynamics
5th Day
Plasticity and learning; Population representation and dynamics
09:00 — 10:30
Lecture 1

Neural (synaptic/receptive filed) plasticity and learning: Hebbian and Spike-timing dependent plasticity; Hopfield model for associative memory; supervised/unsupervised learning; deep learning; reinforcement learning in neuroscience

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Lecture 2

Dynamic latent variable models; Population representations and dynamics (examples: hippocampus, motor cortex) 

12:30 — 14:00
Lunch
14:00 — 19:00
Outing to the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark
19:00 — 22:00
Plasticity and learning
6th Day
Emerging theme in the field: Beyond local circuits
09:00 — 10:30
Lecture 1

Whole-brain activity data and circuits in small animals (part I)

10:30 — 11:00
Coffee break
11:00 — 12:30
Lecture 2

Whole-brain activity data and circuits in small animals (part II)

12:30 — 14:00
Lecture 3

Large-scale brain models (part I)

14:00 — 14:30
14:30 — 16:00
Lecture 4

Large-scale brain models (part II)

16:00 — 19:20
Dinner

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