580.423/623 Systems
Bioengineering: The nervous system
Objective: The course introduces
the central nervous system from an engineering perspective. This is a core course in the
curriculum of undergraduate and Masters students at Hopkins Biomedical Engineering.
Course
Director: Reza Shadmehr
Teaching
Assistants: Julia Choi (jchoi AT bme.jhu.edu),
Course
Coordinator:
Meeting Times: MWF
4:00-5:00 PM, Hodson 210
Exams:
1.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
2.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
3.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
4.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
5.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
6.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Exams from previous
years:
Lecture 1. Reza
Shadmehr
Introduction to the central nervous system: anatomy. text slides
Lecture 2. Reza
Shadmehr
Functional specialization of the cerebral cortex. text slides
Principle of contralateral control; study of language;
perception of color, motion, and faces; memory and amnesia; left and right
cerebral hemispheres.
Lecture 3. Reza
Shadmehr
Neurons and glia, properties of action potentials,
neurotransmitters, second messengers, memory via synaptic plasticity and long-term
potentiation, neuronal turnover in the brain, brain imaging.
Lecture 4.
Genes and behavior.
text slides
Lecture 5.
Examples of neural circuits and what they do.
Recording from
the nervous system; examples from the olfactory system; examples of plasticity
from the electric fish.
Lecture 6.
Synaptic membrane dynamics; construction of action potentials
via the HH model; Calcium dependent potassium channels; bursting; T calcium
channels.
Lecture 7.
Models of synaptic
mechanisms.
Synaptic transmission; synaptic vesicle hypothesis;
post-synaptic receptors; model of ionotropic effects; strength of a synapse;
threshold and refractoriness; temporal summation of EPSPs.
Lecture 8.
Short and long pathways of metabotropic mechanisms;
G-proteins.
Lecture 9.
Location of synaptic terminals on a neuron; cable model of
neuron morphology; derivation of the cable equation; cable equation parameters;
solutions for a semi-infinite cable.
Lecture 10. Alfredo
Kirkwood
Cellular mechanisms of learning (1). slides
Lecture 11. Alfredo
Kirkwood
Cellular mechanisms of learning (2). slides
Lecture 12.
Sensory systems: sensation, perception, psychophysics. slides
Modality, location, timing of a stimulus; sensory modality
and labeled line; spatial distribution of stimulus; intensity of stimulus;
psychophysical laws governing perception
Lecture 13.
Audition, vision, proprioception. slides
Auditory receptors: inner ear, basilar membrane, hair cells;
Visual receptors: retina, rods and cones, color vision; Somatic receptors:
mechanoreceptors, spatial discrimination receptive fields
Lecture 14.
Properties of spike trains. slides
Spike trains and measurement of neuronal response; average
discharge rate; temporal coding; neural firing as Poisson processes
Lecture 15.
Concept of receptive field. slides
RF for visual and auditory inputs; size varies with sensory
area; RF may have both inhibitory and excitatory components
Lecture 16.
Transformation of neural codes from PNS to CNS. slides
Pathways for sensory system in vision, audition, and
proprioception; sensory regions of the cerebral cortex; topographic maps in the
sensory system of the cortex; increase in complexity of neuronal properties;
cortical columns; vision for localization vs. identification
Lecture 17.
Neural plasticity in the cortex. slides
Broadmann’s designation of cortical areas in humans;
sensory inputs and development; modification of cortical maps due to
experience; illusions; perception and neural activity; damage to the cortex and
effect on behavior
Lecture 18.
Neuroengineering: decoding the brain. slides
Lecture 19. Larry Schramm
Neuro-regeneration. slides
Lecture 20. Kechen
Zhang
Realistic and
simplified neural models.
Integrate and fire models; perceptrons and feedforward
networks; exclusive or problem; multi-layer perceptrons;
Lecture 21. Kechen
Zhang
Supervised learning; Hebb’s learning rule; LTP in the
hippocampus.
Lecture 22. Kechen
Zhang
Hopfield network and associative memory; energy functions; short-term
memory networks;
Lecture 23. Kechen
Zhang
Dynamics of neuronal
networks.
Attractors, waves, oscillations, and synchrony
Lecture 24. Kechen
Zhang
Population coding and
distributed representations
Lecture 25. Kechen
Zhang
Self-organizing
networks and map formation
Lecture 26. Kechen
Zhang
Cortical
processing of tactile information.
Lecture 27.
Lecture 28. Ed Conner
Central visual pathways
Lecture 29. Reza
Shadmehr
Introduction to the computational problem of motor control. slides
notes
Lecture 30. Reza Shadmehr
Force generation and control of a limb. slides notes
Motor neurons; muscle length-tension properties; motor
units; muscle’s sensory system; control of posture
Lecture 31. Reza
Shadmehr
Proprioception and reflex pathways. slides notes
Fatigue, spike triggered averaging, spindles and golgi
tendon organs; delay in feedback control; loss of proprioception; functional
electrical stimulation.
Lecture 32. Reza
Shadmehr
Going from vision to action. slides notes
Visual pathways to the cortex; descending tracts from the brain;
split brain patients; role of brainstem centers in control of posture; encoding
of visual scene by neurons in the visual cortex; gain fields.
Lecture 33. Reza
Shadmehr
Adaptation of visuomotor maps. slides
notes
Computations involved in reaching; prism adaptation; disorders
of parietal cortex; neglect.
Lecture 34. Reza Shadmehr
Motor areas of the frontal lobe. slides
notes
Motor cortex and somatotopic maps, change in the motor maps
due to injury and plasticity; control of movements by the motor cortex;
translation of movement plans into action.
Lecture 35. Amy Bastian
Lecture 36.
Tissue engineering of neurons and axonal regeneration.
Lecture 37.
Tissue engineering of neurons.