Instructor : Sandra Arbula

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) are common research tools in neuroscience used to investigate the neural correlates of human cognitive functions.

The first part of the course will focus on the characterization and analysis of MRI data with a special emphasis on functional MRI (fMRI). The course will be comprised of a combination of lectures and hands-on tutorials using FSL software and Open Science pipelines. To be able to follow the hands-on tutorials, please download and install all the required software and data as described in the tutorial here.

The course will be held in presence and for those that cannot assist, remotely on zoom. Room number and zoom link will be indicated on the calendar.For those interested in taking the course, please write me an email (saarbul@sissa.it) letting me know in what modality you prefer to follow the course.

Topics covered:

1. The Physics of MRI (basic principles)

2. From Neurons to BOLD

3. Design and Efficiency

4. Preprocessing (hands-on)

5. General Linear Model (First and Second Level Analysis – hands-on)

6. Advanced fMRI Analysis (MVPA, pRF mapping – lectures and tutorials)

The TMS course, held by Marco Zanon, is scheduled for Tuesday 22nd and 29th of March. The two lectures will cover both the theoretical and practical parts.