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Educational Curriculum

An education in neuroimaging is challenging for many reasons. Students come from many disciplines, each with their own terminologies, and the range of topics and techniques to master is often very wide. We have an educational programme that teaches everyone the basics on everything no matter what your previous training.

There are a number of problems faced by most neuroimaging centres. Apart from removing ferrous-metallic objects from every possible pocket, these include issues as basic as how to understand one another. Part of the challenges is that students come from diverse backgrounds, mathematics, physics, biology, medicine, economics, psychology, and even further afield. This means that most students are good at some things but ill-equipped for others. Typically, it is hard to know what it is you need to know, and what it is you do not know. Our solution to this problem is to provide a wide-ranging curriculum that covers all the basic knowledge and skills necessary to follow what is going on at DRCMR, and to be able to make an intellectual contribution whatever the topic. Everyone is expected to be able to ask questions and offer contributions in fields outside of your own. The curriculum comprises several modules that most students are expected to take whilst at DRCMR. 

Current yearly courses at DRCMR

DRCMR Methods Course
Basic Introduction to Neuroanatomy
MRI Acquisition Course
Analysis & Modelling, Brain & Behaviour (AMBB)
Introduction to Matlab
MR Driver License
CoBS - Copenhagen Brain Stimulation Week
Informal smaller courses or lectures arranged by the Student Group or the Leadership
PhD Courses - different topics within our five Research Areas. They are held biannually and ususally in January and October. For more information on upcoming PhD courses, click here. 

DRCMR Methods Course

Neuroimaging Basics is taught as a peer2peer course where students teach each other with expert help. We cover every major technique used at DRCMR, our philosophy is that everyone should have a basic grasp of everyone else’s research, so that we can give feedback and think creatively about cross-disicplinary and cross-methodological collaborations. The course consists of 14 lectures taught by experts in each topic:

1. Experimental design principles 
2. Physiology of BOLD & EEG, Modelling BOLD responses and Perfusion 
3. Preprocessing, Spatial normalisation (SPM, FSL) and Structural MRI
4. General Linear Model and Contrasts, and Inference at the First Level
5. Group level inference and Multiple comparisons, Cluster-level correction, & Random Field Theory
6. Diffusion MR
7. MR Spectroscopy
8. Data formats for Neuroimaging. How to arrange standards
9. EEG acquisition methods and analysis
10. Brain stimulation
11. Visualising, Localising, and Reporting
12. Non-parametric approaches
13. Combining brain imaging with behavioral testing
14. Dubious Research Practices and their Cures

Basic Introduction to Neuroanatomy

The course is a basic introduction to Neuroanatomy and consist of 4 lectures (3 hours each).

MRI Acquisition course

Our MRI acquisition course teaches the fundamental physics underlying the magnetic resonance techniques employed at DRCMR. Using material listed at the bottom of this page, the course introduces MRI starting from a level requiring little or no MR experience. Lectures cover MR understanding, acquisition methods and parameters. The target audience is employees and students at the DRCMR but the course is open for external participants. A technical background is not required. The main aim is to provide a basis for understanding pitfalls and literature. It covers the MR prerequisites needed to follow the more technical course Medical Magnetic Resonance Imaging offered as part of the Medicine & Technology program at the Technical University of Denmark in the spring, and which is also available for non-DTU-students (offered under "Open University"). Besides knowledge of MR basics, the DTU course also requires math and programming skill.

Analysis & Modelling, Brain & Behaviour (AMBB)

This course is currently being prepared.
AMBB will be an introductory course in:

1) Statistical analysis of data using frequentist and bayesian statistics (software JASP)
2) Modelling & analysis of behavior and cognition via graphical models, sampling methods (software JAGS)
3) Modelling & analysis of functional neuroimaging data, with a particular focus on bayesian methods (software SPM)

Introduction to Matlab

Basic programming skills are essential for neuroimaging data analysis. MATLAB is one of the most commonly used programming languages at DRCMR. The aim of this course is to familiarize students with MATLAB programming and to give students some hands-on experience with technical computing. A student who have met the objectives of this course will be able to:

1. Create plots in MATLAB and export high-quality figures
2. Implement functions and work with build-in MATLAB functions
3. Implement for-loops and while-loops
4. Implement if, else, elseif, and switch statements
5. Debug code
6. Work with logical indexing
7. Organize code in a reasonable manner
8. Get some hands-on experience with SPM, possible to bring your own data and get MATLAB help.

MR Driver's License

Scanner safety and scanner license courses are organised by the physics group. This gives students the basic training necessary to work in an MR environment, and the scanner license is the qualification that students need to acquire in order to autonomously operate an MR machine.

CoBS - Copenhagen Brain Stimulation Week

CoBS offers lectures from on-site brain stimulation experts, such as Hartwig Siebner, Anke Karabanov and Axel Thielscher, but also from external speakers, who give insights into various techniques and applications of non-invasive brain stimulation (NTBS)  as well as share their own experiences and research areas.

We provide in-depth knowledge on the physics, basic applications and practical setup of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) as well as Transcranial Electric Stimulation (TES) in four intensive days of lectures and practical sessions. The workshop addresses medical doctors, researchers at any level of their education, psychologists and other experts interested in the field of magnetic stimulation. The programme is divided into keynote lectures in the mornings and practical hands-on sessions in the afternoons, where we demonstrate the day's learned principles and encourage our participants to actively participate. We constantly try to contribute with both technical and physiological background and to cover clinical as well as research applications, with a special focus on multi-modal combinations of NTBS with other neuroimaging techniques.

The daily work in groups creates an interactive environment in which participants collaborate and network actively, not only among each other but also with the speakers and hands-on lecturers.

Informal smaller courses arranged by the Student Group or the Leadership

Informal lecture on pragmatic skills such as grant writing, giving talks, paper writing, ergonomics, and so on. How to give a project presentation, How to write a paper, How to review a paper, How to give a talk, How to prioritize time, How to apply for funding, How to find a problem worth solving, Responsible conduct of research etc.

 

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