Functional Neuroimaging

Objectives and general content

The course is intended to PhD students holding a Master degree in neuroscience, psychology, natural sciences or equivalent, as well as medical students, taking part in a research-training programme in medicine. The course will give an introduction to the field of neuroimaging. The course is divided into three parts.

The first part is a short theoretical introduction into neuroscience and neuroimaging, covering all relevant aspects on physiology, neuroanatomy, some of the most relevant functional networks, as well as the technical aspects behind structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging and related methods, such as DTI and perfusion measurements.

In the second part, the course will introduce the most relevant experimental techniques, used in functional neuroimaging, as well as the methods, used for analysing functional as well as structural MRI data.

The third part is the practical part, where an experiment will be developed, performed on the scanner, analysed, and the results will be discussed.

Type of course

Perspective course

Detailed content

Part 1: Introduction to neuroscience

This first part of the course introduces to fundamental knowledge in physiology and neuroanatomy. The course is mostly aimed to repeat these issues rather than introducing them as new knowledge. The content of this part is restricted to those aspects, which are relevant for neuroimaging. These are in particular aspects of configuration of neurons, neuronal signal transmission, physiological basis of the BOLD effect, configuration of the cortex, the different lobes, Brodmann areas, functional division of different brain areas, which are relevant for visual, auditory and sensomotoric processing, as well as some important cognitive networks. The first part continues by introducing the technical aspects of various measurement techniques, commonly used in the field of neuroscience. The main focus is thereby on MR based techniques, such as ordinary structural imaging, functional imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, perfusion imaging (ASL) and spectroscopy.

Part 2: Planning, performing, and analysing a fMRI study (Theory)

This part of the course introduced to the various experimental techniques, using in functional imaging. These are not only block- and event-related designs, but also parametric designs, resting state studies, longitudinal studies, and clinical applications of fMRI. The selection of the experimental design has also consequences on how the study could be performed on the scanner. The various aspects, which have to be considered, will be explained.

Further, different analysis strategies are introduced. These are mainly based on the general linear model (GLM) or on independent component analyses (ICA). The mathematical backgrounds and how they are implemented will be explained. The reference software for this course will be the matlab-based software ‘statistical parametric mapping’ (SPM) and the ‘group ICA fMRI toolbox’ (GIFT).

Other software packages, such as FSL and BrainVoyager will be mentioned, as well, but all practical tasks will be demonstrated in SPM.

This part of the course concludes with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the methods explained, especially with respect to possible clinical applications.

Part 3: Planning, performing, and analysing a fMRI study (Praxis)

In the practical part of the course, students are encouraged to develop a fMRI study. This study will be performed on the scanner, located at the Haukeland university hospital and the data will be analysed with the methods, introduced in the second part. The practical session is also aimed to be used for discussing actual project. Students may have the possibility to present their own studies and to discuss issues such as experimental design and analysis strategies.

This part of the course concludes with some guidelines on how results should be reported, which tools are available for identifying brain areas, etc.

After finishing the course, the students will have basic knowledge of neuroanatomy, and functional neuroimaging approaches. This includes that they learned the technical and physical principles behind magnetic resonance imaging and its different applications, they now what the BOLD effect is and how it could be used for displaying neuronal activations. The students are familiar with the typical experimental fMRI designs, and know the limitations of the different method.

The students got an understanding of the parameters, which are most relevant for designing and fMRI experiment, acquiring and analysing the fMRI data. They will be able to perform the processing of the data and to specify a general linear model, based on the experimental design, they are able to analyse the data within standard fMRI analysis software, and they are able to describe the results in an appropriate way.

3 ECTS (attendance & assignment)

1 ECTS (attendance)