9.691/MCB 206 Introduction to Connectomics

Joint Harvard-MIT graduate/undergraduate seminar class, Spring 2012
Units: 3-0-6
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of neuroscience (undergraduates by permission of instructor)

This class covers the emergent field of Connectomics, with an emphasis on reconstructions of neurons and neural circuits from electron-microscopic image stacks. Course work consists of discussion of scientific papers on retina, cortex and the neuromuscular junction, as well as hands-on project work involving the analysis of electron-microscopic image data.

Organizers

• Sebastian Seung (seung@mit.edu)
• Jeff Lichtman (jeff@mcb.harvard.edu)

• Daniel Berger (dberger@mit.edu)
• Narayanan "Bobby" Kasthuri (bobby.kasthuri@gmail.com)
• Jinseop Kim (js_kim@mit.edu)

Where and when

Class:

• Harvard: 52 Oxford St. (Northwest Building), Room 343
• MIT: 43 Vassar Street (Building 46, MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences), Room 46-4062

Out-of-class Meetings:

• Cortex (Harvard): Wednesdays at 9am in room 343, Thursdays at 9am in room 330 (Northwest Building, 52 Oxford Street)
• Retina (MIT): Wednesdays at 5pm and Fridays at 4pm in room 46-5056 (MIT-BCS Building, 43 Vassar Street)

Requirements

• Class participation
• Presentation of a scientific paper in class (90 minutes including discussion)
• Project work on either retina or cortex data
• Presentation of the project work in class (15 minutes + 5 minutes discussion)
• 1-page written summary of the project results

Tuesday, February 7 at Harvard

Tuesday, February 14 at Harvard (again!)

• Retina: Kandel, Schwartz, Jessel (2001): "Principles of Neural Science", Chapter 24 (Retina). [Emilio Gonzalez]
• Cortex: Arbib, Erdi, Szentagothai (1998): "Neural Organization", Chapters 2.3.2, 8.1 and 8.2 (Cerebral Cortex). [Senan Ebrahim]

Tuesday, February 21 at MIT

• Retina: Gollisch and Meister (2010): "Eye Smarter than Scientists Believed: Neural Computations in Circuits of the Retina" [Chris Smith]

Tuesday, February 28 at Harvard

• Retina: Briggman et al. (2011): "Wiring specificity in the direction-selectivity circuit of the retina" [Robin Gong]
• Cortex: Bock et al. (2011): "Network anatomy and in vivo physiology of visual cortical neurons" / Martin (2011): "Neuroanatomy: Uninhibited Connectivity in Neocortex?" [Adrian Veres]

Tuesday, March 6 at MIT

• Retina: Levick (1967): "Receptive fields and trigger features of ganglion cells in the visual streak of the rabbit's retina" [Sarah Bricault]
• Cortex: Callaway (1998): "Local circuits in primary visual cortex of the macaque monkey"
• Cortex: Markram et al. (2004): "Interneurons of the neocortical inhibitory system" [Yvette Leung]

Tuesday, March 13 at MIT (moved from Harvard to MIT because of Harvard spring break)

• Retina: Kim et al. (2008): "Molecular identification of a retinal cell type that responds to upward motion" [Alyssa Wilson]
• Cortex: Fino and Yuste (2011): "Dense Inhibitory Connectivity in Neocortex" [Matt Greene]

Tuesday, March 20 at Harvard (moved from MIT to Harvard because of MIT spring break)

• Retina: Baccus et al. (2008): "A Retinal Circuit That Computes Object Motion" [Elizabeth Bailey]
• Cortex: LeVay et al. (1980): "The Development of Ocular Dominance Columns in Normal and Visually Deprived Monkeys"
• Cortex: Katz and Crowley (2002): "Development of cortical circuits: Lessons from ocular dominance columns" [Jacob Pritt]

Tuesday, March 27 at Harvard

• Retina: Dowling and Boycott (1966): "Organization of the Primate Retina: Electron Microscopy" [Lila Fakharzadeh]
• Cortex: Helmstaedter et al. (2011): "High-accuracy neurite reconstruction for high-throughput neuroanatomy" [Nick Moore]

Tuesday, April 3 at MIT

• Neuromuscular Junction: Lu et al. (2009): "The Interscutularis Muscle Connectome" [George Hao]

Tuesday, April 10 at Harvard

• [Retina: Roska and Werblin (2001): "Vertical interactions across ten parallel, stacked representations in the mammalian retina"]
• Retina: Strettoi and Masland (1995): "The Organization of the Inner Nuclear Layer of the Rabbit Retina" [Richard Sima]
• Cortex: Mishchenko et al.: "Ultrastructural Analysis of Hippocampal Neuropil from the Connectomics Perspective" [Will Gray]
• Neuromuscular Junction: Tapia et al. (2012): "Pervasive synaptic branch removal in the mammalian neuromuscular system at birth" [Kathy Ran]

Wednesday, April 25, 9am at Harvard (!)

Tuesday, May 1 at MIT (!)

Previous Classes

• Click here to go to the webpage of the 2007 class
• Click here to go to the webpage of the 2009 class