A Community Built and Collaborative Research Education Program in Computational Neuroscience

Project Summary/Abstract This project aims to provide accessible, national level education in computational neuroscience in the form of a short-course research education experience. The purpose of this educational experience is to supplement the training of a national workforce to provide them with new skills and techniques relevant to the BRAIN Initiative. The BRAIN Initiative has brought about many new tools and techniques as well as a vast quantity of data, but most neuroscientists are not equipped to access, use, analyze, and integrate this data, so the focus of the proposed educational activities are to enable the neuroscience workforce to handle this data while also creating bridges for nearby disciplines, such as computer science, to contribute to neuroscience research. To achieve the educational goals of the program, the proposed research education program uses hands-on techniques in collaborative learning environments over a multi-week intensive summer program. During this program experienced faculty and instructors help guide small student learning groups through both instructional, interactive course materials and mentored research projects in which students access actual BRAIN initiative data archives to perform new analyses. By learning how to use BRAIN Initiative data, integrate it into realistic models of the nervous system, and collaborate with others on its analysis and interpretation, trainees of the program will be able to better understand the biological basis of mental processes, behavior, and disorders. Overall, this national research education program in computational techniques for neuroscience will help make researchers more effective, make better use of BRAIN Initiative work up to this point, and accelerate our development of an integrated understanding of the nervous system.