The CAJAL School in OPTOPATH
OptoPath hosted some courses of the Cajal School "Connectomics: from Micro- to Meso- and Macro-Scales"
(2-21 October 2017, Bordeaux Neurocampus, France)
Imagine that your goal is to discover how a brain works. One of the key aspects for achieving this is to understand how neurons and brain areas are interconnected, both at the structural and functional level. This knowledge requires the application of a diverse range of approaches, and the skill-set to understand how these approaches could be implemented. The Cajal course on Connectomics is an intensive three-week course that guides participants through the theory and practice of state-of-the art methods to address pertinent questions in the field of structural/functional connectomics — from mice to humans. This goal will be achieved through a unique balance of lectures from worldwide experts in their respective fields and experimental demonstrations and hands-on laboratory work (mini-projects) in small groups. These mini-projects encompass a diversity of techniques, ranging from EM- and super-resolution approaches to electrophysiological, calcium imaging, and optogenetic connectivity approaches in the behaving mouse, and from viral mono-trans-synaptic tracing and whole brain clearing and imaging methods to neuroimaging approaches using magnetic resonance imaging (functional and structural imaging) in both mice and human subjects (performed on the participants), as well as tractography of human postmortem tissue.