PhD Program Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience
The BCCN Göttingen hosts a graduate program in "Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience" (PTCN). This PhD program is part of the Göttingen Graduate Center for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences (GGNB) and is conducted jointly by the University of Göttingen, the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, the German Primate Center, and the European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen.
Understanding the computational capabilities of neural systems requires a unique mix of theoretical, computational and biological skills that were in the past distributed across different disciplines, mainly biology, physics, computer science, psychology, and medicine. Our PhD program is designed to bring these different fields together thus creating a new generation of scientists that are equally at home with the thoroughly quantitative and mathematical mode of thought of the exact sciences and with the complexities of real nervous systems.
To cover the interdisciplinary nature of this program we welcome national and international students with backgrounds in physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, computer science, medicine, and mathematics. Teaching language is English. After an initial period of course work students complete a PhD by research in their chosen field. The computational neuroscience community in Göttingen is offering innovative courses in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience. These include lectures in neural networks and theoretical neuroscience, seminars and practical courses on topics in theoretical neuroscience, and an annual advanced summer school in computational neuroscience. PTCN extends these offers and shapes them into a comprehensive and interdisciplinary curriculum.
Understanding the computational capabilities of neural systems requires a unique mix of theoretical, computational and biological skills that were in the past distributed across different disciplines, mainly biology, physics, computer science, psychology, and medicine. Our PhD program is designed to bring these different fields together thus creating a new generation of scientists that are equally at home with the thoroughly quantitative and mathematical mode of thought of the exact sciences and with the complexities of real nervous systems.
To cover the interdisciplinary nature of this program we welcome national and international students with backgrounds in physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, computer science, medicine, and mathematics. Teaching language is English. After an initial period of course work students complete a PhD by research in their chosen field. The computational neuroscience community in Göttingen is offering innovative courses in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience. These include lectures in neural networks and theoretical neuroscience, seminars and practical courses on topics in theoretical neuroscience, and an annual advanced summer school in computational neuroscience. PTCN extends these offers and shapes them into a comprehensive and interdisciplinary curriculum.
For further information please visit the PTCN website.
Teaching at the BSc and MSc Level
The members of the BCCN Göttingen offer a varity of lectures and seminars at the BSc and MSc levels for the following programs: Physics, Mathematics, Applied Computer Science, Applied Data Science, Neuroscience, Psychology and Material Science. For more information on the differnt courses please visit the catalogue of modules .
Winter Semester
Summer Semester
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
Winter Semester
- Lecture: Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience: Collective dynamics of biological neural Networks I
BSc/MSc Physics; MSc Mathematic, MSc Applied Computer Science
Wolf, Wibral, Gollisch - Internship: Forschungshauptpraktikum Biophysik und Physik komplexer Systeme / Advanced Research Lab Course in Biophysics and Physics of Complex Systems
Msc Physics
Enderlein, Geisel, Kree, Müller, Parlitz, Schmidt, Timme, Wolf, Wörgötter, Zippelius - Exercise: Practical course on Computer Vision and Robotics
BSc/MSc Physics
Wörgötter - Lecture with exercise: Mathematical Data Science, BSc Applied Data Science
Deep Learning
MSc Mathematics, BSc/MSc Applied Computer Science, MSc Physics, BSc
Ecker - Seminar: Spezielle Probleme der Biophysik, Fluoreszensspektroskopie und –mikroskopie
MSc Physics, MSc Mathematics
Enderlein, Gregor - Lecture: Theoretical Biophysics
BSc/MSc Physics, MSc Matter to Life, MSc Material Science
Enderlein, Neef - Lecture: Neurosciences
MSc Neuroscience
Enderlein, Gollisch, Fiala, Moser, Treue - Exercise: Neurosciences
MSc Neuroscience
Enderlein, Schacht, Treue - Exercise: Neurobiology 1
MSc Developmental, Neural and Behavioral Biology
Gollisch, Göpert, Fiala, Löwel - Lecture: Neurobiology 1
MSc Developmental, Neural and Behavioral Biology; MSc Microbiology and Biochemistry
Göpert, Fiala, Löwel - Lecture: Einfuehrung in die Magnetresonanz-Tomografie
Advanced students in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Medicine
Frahm - Seminar: From vision to action
MSc Psychology
Gail, Scherberger, Gail - Lecture: From vision to action
MSc Psychology, MSc Microbiology and Biochemistry, MSc Developmental, Neural and Behavioral Biology
Gail, Scherberger, Gail - Seminar: Seminar zur statistischen Mechanik komplexer Systeme
MSc Physics, MSc Mathematics, MSc Material Science
Kree - Lecture: Hard problems in soft matter: Theory and numerics of active colloids
MSc Physics, MSc Mathematics, MSc Material Science
Kree - Exercise: Hard problems in soft matter: Theory and numerics of active colloids
MSc Physics, MSc Mathematics, MSc Material Science
Kree - Lecture: Development and plasticity of the nervous system
MSc Developmental, Neural and Behavioral Biology, MSc Microbiology and Biochemistry, MSc Applied Computer Sciences
Löwel - Seminar: Nonlinear dynamics, time series analysis, and machine learning
BSc/ MSc Physics
Parlitz - Lecture: Kognitionspsychologie
BSc Biology, BSc Molecular Medicine, BSc Biochemistry, BSc Applied Computer Science, MSc Applied Computer Science
Schacht - Intern: Biokognition
BSc Biology
Schacht - Seminar: Vertiefung Affektive Neurowissenschaften, 1 und 2
MSc Psychology
Schacht - Lecture: Biologische Psychologie I
BSc Psychology, BSc Biology, BSc/MSc Applied Computer Sciences, BSc Biochemistry, BSc Biological Diversity and Ecology, MSc Physics
Gail, Treue - Lecture: Biologische Psychologie II/ Kognitive Neurowissenschaften
BSc Psychology, BSc Biology, BSc/MSc Applied Computer Sciences, BSc Biochemistry, BSc Biological Diversity and Ecology, MSc Physics
Gail, Treue - Lecture: Biologische Psychologie: Neurowissenschaften
BSc Psychology, BSc Biology, Biochemistry, BSc/MSc Applied Computer Science
Gail, Treue - Lecture: Advanced Computational Neuroscience I
MSc Physics, MSc Mathematics
Wörgötter - Seminar: Proseminar Computational Neuroscience/Neuroinformatik
BSc/MSc Physics, BSc/MSc Applied Computer Science
Wörgötter - Seminar: Seminar Computational Neuroscience/Neuroinformatik
MSc Physics, MSc Applied Computer Science, MSc Mathematics
Wörgötter - Lecture: Introduction to Computer Vision and Robotics
BSc/MSc Physics
Wörgötter
- Lecture: Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience: Collective dynamics of biological neural Networks II
BSc/MSc Physics; MSc Mathematic, MSc Applied Computer Science
Priesemann, Wolf - Lecture: Computational Neuroscience: Basics
BSc /MSc Physics, BSc/MSc Mathematics, BSc/MSc Applied Computer Science
Wörgötter - Seminar: Spezielle Probleme der Biophysik, Fluoreszensspektroskopie und –mikroskopie
MSc Physics, MSc Mathematics
Enderlein, Gregor - Lecture: Einfuehrung in die Magnetresonanz-Tomografie
Advanced students in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Medicine
Frahm - Seminar: Proseminar Computational Neuroscience/Neuroinformatik
BSc/MSc Physics, BSc/MSc Applied Computer Science
Wörgötter - Seminar: Seminar Computational Neuroscience/Neuroinformatik
MSc Physics, MSc Applied Computer Science, MSc Mathematics
Wörgötter
Courses on Computational Neuroscience
The members of the BCCN Göttingen annually have offered a course on Computational Neuroscience (CNS) to provide focused training for graduate students and young researchers on cutting edge theoretical concepts and computational methods in all areas of research in neuroscience.
2016
Past courses:
2nd Advanced Computational Neuroscience School - Mathematical approaches to neural circuit dynamics
Gilles Laurent, MPI for brain research, Frankfurt
Magnus Richardson, University of Warwick, Warwick - abstract
Moritz Helias, Jülich Research Center, Jülich - abstract
Misha Tsodyks, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot - abstract
Vijay Balasubramanian, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Jason Kerr, Ceasar, Bonn
Tobias Moser, Göttingen University, Göttingen - title
Wolf Singer, MPI for brain research, Frankfurt - abstract
Erwin Neher, MPI for biophysical chemistry, Göttingen
Joscha Liedtke
Manuel Schottdorf
Rainer Engelken
Jens Wilting
September 6 - 16, 2016
The orchestrated interplay of thousands of nerve cells represents, processes and stores information in human and animal brains. Technological advances like optogenetics, connectomics and cellular resolution imaging provide tools to observe and manipulate the activity of such neuronal assemblies. These developments open new avenues for the interplay of theory and experiment in neuroscience and challenge the development of mathematical approaches for the systematic dissection and understanding of network processing. The Göttingen advanced computational neuroscience summer school provides focused training on cutting edge theoretical concepts and ideas in this field. The school features intensive lectures and advanced theoretical problem work by world leading experts. In contrast to most other courses in computational neuroscience, it is designed for participants with a mathematical and quantitative background.
Speakers
Organizers
Agostina PalmigianoJoscha Liedtke
Manuel Schottdorf
Rainer Engelken
Jens Wilting
1st Advanced Computational Neuroscience School - Theoretical perspectives on neural assemblies
Moritz Helmstaedter, MPI for brain research, Frankfurt
Maneesh Sahani, University College London, London
Yoram Burak, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
John Hertz, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
Sara Solla, Northwestern University, Chicago
Barry Lee, SUNY College of Optometry, New York
Alexander Gail, German Primate Center, Göttingen
Jack Cowan, University of Chicago, Chicago
David Hansel, Université Paris Descartes, Paris
Walter Stühmer, MPI for experimental medicine, Göttingen
Agostina Palmigiano
Joscha Liedtke
Manuel Schottdorf
Rainer Engelken
September 2 - 12, 2015
The orchestrated interplay of thousands of nerve cells represents, processes and stores information in human and animal brains. Technological advances like optogenetics, connectomics and cellular resolution imaging provide tools to observe and manipulate the activity of such neuronal assemblies. These developments open new avenues for the interplay of theory and experiment in neuroscience and challenge the development of mathematical approaches for the systematic dissection and understanding of network processing. The Göttingen advanced computational neuroscience summer school provides focused training on cutting edge theoretical concepts and ideas in this field. The school features intensive lectures and advanced theoretical problem work by world leading experts. In contrast to most other courses in computational neuroscience, it is designed for participants with a mathematical and quantitative background.
Speakers
Organizers
Maximilian Puelma-TouzelAgostina Palmigiano
Joscha Liedtke
Manuel Schottdorf
Rainer Engelken
12th Summer Course on Computational Neuroscience
Carl van Vreeswijk, Paris Descartes University, Paris
Claudia Clopath, Imperial College, London, England
Gasper Tkacik, IST Austria, Vienna, Austria
Alfonso Renart, Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Lisbon, Portugal
Srdjan Ostojic, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France
Agostina Palmigiano
Joscha Liedtke
September 8 - 12, 2014
The course is intended to provide graduate students and young researchers from all parts of neuroscience with a knowledge of the major theoretical and computational methods in neuroscience and to acquaint them with recent developments in this field. One of the main objectives of the course is to enable participants from any field of neuroscience to study recent research papers on their own. Along with traditional lectures that provide an overview of important aspects and recent developments, students gather in small groups and study one out of a number of recent research papers that are related to the respective topic. The "self-study" is supervised by the speaker who will encourage students to apply and extend what they have learned in the lectures towards achieving deeper insight into the main ideas of the paper. This combination of lecturing and interactive learning has proven effective over the previous years (1999 and 2001 at Bochum, 2003 - 2012 at Göttingen) at balancing depth with the time constraints of the course.
Speakers
Organizers
Maximilian Puelma-TouzelAgostina Palmigiano
Joscha Liedtke
11th Summer Course on Computational Neuroscience
Naftali Tishby, Hebrew University, Israel
Moritz Helias, Juelich Research Centre, Germany
Benjamin Lindner, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Bernhard Nessler, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany
Bathellier Brice, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Agostina Palmigiano
David Hofmann
September 2 - 6, 2013
The course is intended to provide graduate students and young researchers from all parts of neuroscience with a knowledge of the major theoretical and computational methods in neuroscience and to acquaint them with recent developments in this field. One of the main objectives of the course is to enable participants from any field of neuroscience to study recent research papers on their own. Along with traditional lectures that provide an overview of important aspects and recent developments, students gather in small groups and study one out of a number of recent research papers that are related to the respective topic. The "self-study" is supervised by the speaker who will encourage students to apply and extend what they have learned in the lectures towards achieving deeper insight into the main ideas of the paper. This combination of lecturing and interactive learning has proven effective over the previous years (1999 and 2001 at Bochum, 2003 - 2012 at Göttingen) at balancing depth with the time constraints of the course.
Speakers
Organizers
Maximilian Puelma-TouzelAgostina Palmigiano
David Hofmann
10th Summer Course on Computational Neuroscience
Susanne Schreiber, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Humboldt University Berlin, Germany
J. Michael Herrmann, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK
Surya Ganguli, Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, USA
Adrienne Fairhall, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, USA
Matthias Bethge, Computational Vision and Neuroscience Group, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany
Agostina Palmigiano
Maximilian Puelma-Touzel
September 3 - 7, 2012
The course is intended to provide graduate students and young researchers from all parts of neuroscience with working knowledge of theoretical and computational methods in neuroscience and to acquaint them with recent developments in this field. The speakers will provide an overview on important aspects and recent developments in their fields of expertise by means of three-hour tutorials. In addition to the tutorials, participants will gather in small groups and study one out of a number of recent research papers that are related to the respective tutorial. The "self-study" will be supervised by the speakers who will encourage students to apply and extend what they have learned in the tutorials towards achieving deeper insight into the main ideas of the paper. The results of the self-study will be shared and discussed with other participants and the speakers during the presentations. This combination of lecturing and interactive learning has proven effective over the previous years (1999 and 2001 at Bochum, 2003 - 2011 at Göttingen) at balancing depth with the time constraints of the course.
Speakers
Organizers
David HofmannAgostina Palmigiano
Maximilian Puelma-Touzel
9th Fall Course on Computational Neuroscience
Rainer Friedrich, Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland
Michael J. Gutnick, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Robert Gütig, Max-Planck-Institut for Experimental Medicine, Göttingen, Germany
Jason Kerr, Neural Population Imaging, Max-Planck-Institut für biologische Kybernetik, Tübingen, Germany
David McAlpine, Ear Institute, School of Life & Medical Sciences, University College London, United Kingdom
Sara Solla, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Chicago, USA
September 19 - 23, 2011
The course is intended to provide graduate students and young researchers from all parts of neuroscience with working knowledge of theoretical and computational methods in neuroscience and to acquaint them with recent developments in this field. The speakers will provide an overview on important aspects and recent developments in their fields of expertise by means of three-hour tutorials. In addition to the tutorials, participants will gather in small groups and study one out of a number of recent research papers that are related to the respective tutorial. The "self-study" will be supervised by the speakers who will encourage students to apply and extend what they have learned in the tutorials towards achieving deeper insight into the main ideas of the paper. The results of the self-study will be shared and discussed with other participants and the speakers during the presentations. This combination of lecturing and interactive learning has proven effective over the previous years (1999 and 2001 at Bochum, 2003 - 2010 at Göttingen) at balancing depth with the time constraints of the course.
Speakers
Organizer
David Hofmann
8th Fall Course on Computational Neuroscience
Daniel A. Butts, Department of Biology and NACS, University of Maryland, College Park
Sophie Deneve, Ecole Normale Superieur, Paris, Group for Neural Theory
Hansjörg Scherberger, Research Group Neurobiology, German Primate Center Göttingen
Elad Schneidman, Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot
Susanne Still, University of Hawaii, Department of Information and Computer Sciences
Hecke Schrobsdorff
September 20 - 24, 2010
The course is intended to provide graduate students and young researchers from all parts of neuroscience with working knowledge of theoretical and computational methods in neuroscience and to acquaint them with recent developments in this field. The speakers provide an overview on important aspects and recent developments in their fields of expertise by means of three-hour tutorials. In addition to the tutorials, participants will gather in small groups and study one out of a number of recent research papers that are related to the respective tutorial. The "self-study" will be supervised by the speakers such that (based on the introduction given in the tutorials) a profound insight in the main ideas can be obtained. The results of the self-study will be shared with other participants and discussed with them and the speakers during the presentations. The particular form of the course has proven successful in previous courses (1999 and 2001 at Bochum, 2003 - 2009 at Göttingen). It combines lecturing with an active interaction with the main ideas of the topical fields in a way which has proven efficient given the time constraints of the course.
Speakers
Organizers
David HofmannHecke Schrobsdorff