Coursera Course: Exploring Neural Data

Brown University

Description:

Even though the course from www.coursera.com provides the necessary guidance needed by the students, they will need some extra assistance outside the given course guidelines. In order to understand the lessons better a student will need some actual class sessions. These classroom sessions are provided by TutorTeddy.com based on the courses of Coursera. Students can interact with professional instructors can get their queries answered and learn faster.

The course emphasizes on developing the idea of neural data and analyzing it. With the help of the real neural data sets, whose source is from the neuroscience research labs, students will develop knowledge about various techniques of data analysis. In this way the students can find for themselves how well the brain works.

This particular course, "Exploring Neural Data "aids us to learn and know about the neuroscience research and exploring questions that are related to working of the brain. The coursea is intended for the students to develop their primary knowledge about facing real-life challenges while working with neuroscience and this introductory level course also helps the students to learn how to work and handle massive data that are collected from the brain. Neuroscientists will give details about the labs they are working, the idea and full description of their research and an explanation of the techniques of data analytic. Also, students can explore the original data that are collected in all these labs of research.

The three main things that students will learn about in this coursea are- the basics of neuroscience -its principles and the challenging questions in the research involved in this field; working involved with Python, an open source language programming with Python; the necessary and the important techniques involved in the data analysis of neuroscience. Firstly lessons will be given on how to explore single neurons, then this concept will be extended to multiple neurons, and eventually the tools for sampling from more than thousands of neurons will be considered. At the end students will be given opportunity to make investigation in the details of their choice that are provided by the researcher whose work has been learned about.

Syllabus of the coursea:

Module 1 gives details about what the brain tells us and how should we explore neural responses.

Module 2 tells us about the uniqueness of humans and idea of motor cycle.

Module 3 makes us knowledgeable about how to be sensible in our senses and idea of exploring of visual objects.

Module 4 gives us information about what exactly happens when we are in sleep and thus exploring brain states.

Module 5 deals with the final projects.

Background Recommended:

No prerequisite is required for the class. Anyone curious about the subject and eager to learn about the idea of collecting and analyzing neuroscience data are welcomed. The primary knowledge of programming for example arrays, loops etc. is okay and help you to learn a bit faster but it is not a necessity to have a prior idea about programming. At the beginning of the course optional materials will help the students to get an introductory lesson about Python.

Suggested Readings

No separate reading is there for this course. Students who are unfamiliar with Python and those who want further references to programming in Python can refer to Allen B. Downey's Think Python (O'Reilly). There is an option of free download of this book under a license or one may also purchase it from online retailers. However this book is not a necessity for completing the course.